Tag: contemporary

From Twinkle With Love by Sandhya Menon

Posted on by KnotMagick Studios

Genre: YA Contemporary
Format read: audiobook
Rep: POC (multiple ethnicities), mixed race, LGBT
Rating: planchet-4

Twinkle is a self-described wallflower–a “groundling.” While she has trouble stringing two words together at school, she dreams of one day being a filmmaker. Alas, her youtube channel has a total of seven subscribers–four of them are porn bots, and three of them are accounts her grandma created because she kept forgetting her password.

In addition to directing movies that change lives, she also dreams of joining the “silk feathered hat” group at school, the group of popular kids that includes her crush, Neil, and her former best friend.

When someone suggests she make a film for the school’s annual summer event, Twinkle isn’t keen on the idea until Sahil–Neil’s twin brother–offers to help. A certified film critic, he knows how movies are made and plots work, and together they hatch a plan to create a gender-bent Nosferatu film to showcase at the big event. The film will be seen not only by the people with money and influence in the area, but also news crews, college scouts, and others that have the potential to change Twinkle’s life. Unless she gets a full ride, her chances of going to film school are non-existent; her family just can’t afford it.

Luckily, Sahil has the passion, talent, and cash to get the ball rolling on the film, and the two of them are soon working closely. So closely, in fact, that Twinkle’s crush starts to shift from one brother to the other.

But Twinkle has a secret she can’t tell Sahil: She suddenly has a secret admirer, and he shares and  initial with Sahil’s brother, Neil. Considering the deep rivalry and hurt separating the brothers, it would crush Sahil if he found out.

This is the second book by Sanhya Menon I’ve read, and I love her work. From diverse casts to quirky family members, she brings life as an Indian American teen into living color. For me, growing up in Super White, Nowhere, Ohio, it’s a drastic change from both how I spent my formative years and what I read now, and I love it.

The only thing I didn’t like about this book came near the end, and was relatively minor:

As things start to get rocky, as they tend to do near the climax of any book, Twinkle handles some situations poorly, and has to apologize to her friends and family. In each and every case, she apologizes very casually, and then the other person accepts the apology and offers their own for doing whatever they did wrong in the same situation. This happened with both teens and adults.

Should the world work this way? Absolutely. Does it? Hell no. Part of me wanted to see just one person snap back at her, especially since one of those apologies felt very out of character to me. Usually when I find myself apologizing to someone, they take it as their due and don’t offer any sort of apology in return, even if they were also wrong or behaved badly.

Yes, I am probably surrounded by assholes. But I also just found it really unrealistic that  a group of teenagers would be that forthcoming. But that’s just my own opinion of the situation, and it could certainly be taken as an aspirational sort of thing, to show the way people should behave.

Regardless, though, I am definitely looking forward to getting my hands on Something about Sweetie.

To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before by Jenny Han

Posted on by KnotMagick Studios

Genre: YA Contemporary
Format read: audiobook
Rep: POC (asian), mixed race
Rating: planchet-3

Wallflower Laura Jean can’t confess the way she feels to her crushes, so she writes letters to them instead. But when someone uncovers her secret love letters and mails them, it sends her into a tailspin. Not only have all of her old crushes gotten letters, but so has her current crush and neighbor, Josh. Even worse, Josh also happens to be her older sister’s recent ex.

To help save face and convince Josh she isn’t really interested in him–and maybe to convince herself, too–she and another letter recipient, Peter, decided to pretend they are a couple. Bonus points: Dating Laura Jean will really piss off his ex, Genevieve.

But the lie soon gets out of hand, and neither Laura Jean nor Peter can tell what’s real and what’s just the fantasy anymore.

I was late catching the train on this one. Honestly, I don’t regret it too much. I liked the movie, and though it was pretty cute. I’m a bit less keen on the book (I know, I know. *Ducks flying objects*).

While I loved Laura Jean’s voice, I’m not crazy about Josh or Peter. Josh is a cabbage–that is, a character that could be replaced with a cabbage, and no one would notice. He has very few opinions and the only time we see him express an actual emotion, it’s jealousy.

Peter is the obnoxious kind of boy that I avoided in high school, and the type of man that makes me roll  my eyes and leave the room. Even worse, the narrator for this one did a really annoying voice for him. It was completely in character, but so annoying to listen to. Honestly, I think Laura Jean could do better than both of them.

While the “falling for my fake boyfriend/girlfriend” trope is one of my favorites, I’m still only lukewarm on this book. I do want to finish the series, but it was still only about 3-3.5 stars for me.

Twenties Girl by Sophie Kinsella

Posted on by KnotMagick Studios

Genre: Contemporary
Secondary genre: paranormal
Format read: audiobook
Rating: DNF

**This review contains mild spoilers**

Lara is in a lurch. She quit her job to start a company with her best friend, only to have said friend elope to another country. Her business is failing, her family is disappointed in her, and even worse, her wealthy relatives keep rubbing it in her face. To top it all off, her boyfriend dumped her.

And now she’s seeing ghosts. Well, a ghost. Of her great-aunt Sadie, whom she’s never met, but whose funeral she’s expected to attend.

The sad service–no flowers, only seven guests, and no one who’d ever actually met Sadie–is a huge disappointment on many levels, until suddenly Sadie’s ghost, circa 1927, swoops in and starts screaming about a lost necklace. And Lara’s the only one who can hear her.

This book should have been a home-run for me: Ghosts! The 1920s! A broke millennial finding her way in the world!

But no. I was cringing within the first five minutes.

Lara as a character is a wet noodle. She’s clingy, calling her ex so often he changed his phone number. She routinely put people in her life (like said ex, and her absentee best friend) who take advantage of her. This isn’t entirely surprising, considering her family  is a cluster of assholes. From a psychological standpoint, she’s drawn to what she knows.

Then we have Sadie. Sadie, of the screechy voice, the “look at me!” personality, and a complete lack of respect or consideration for the people around her.

The two of them butt heads from the first, and I couldn’t stand either of them. They were both extremely annoying. Just when I would start to feel sympathy for Sadie, she would go off and do something annoying again.

And Lara’s method of dealing with Sadie is to tell lie after lie…to the police. I’m not talking little white lies that might be funny later. I mean things like “I think someone at the nursing home murdered my aunt!” (shouted in desperation when Sadie pesters her to stop the funeral and subsequent cremation).

The fact that she would a) purger herself and b) put other people at risk without even thinking sent me so far over the edge that I DNFed this book at around 25%. It was a disappointing thing to do, especially after reading Finding Audrey and loving it so much. I don’t think I’ve ever read an author with both a 5 star read and a DNF before. But I just couldn’t stand listening to the two of them bicker, or watching as Lara sent her train wreck of a life straight over a cliff.

Maybe others find the things I dislike funny, but this one definitely didn’t hit the sweet spot for me.

Finding Audrey by Sophie Kinsella

Posted on by KnotMagick Studios

“I’ve often noticed that people equate ‘having a sense of humor’ with ‘being an insensitive moron.’” –Finding Audrey by Sophie Kinsella

Genre: Contemporary YA
Format read: audiobook
Content warnings: bullying (implied), anxiety attacks
Positive rep: mental health (social anxiety, depression
Rating: planchet-5

Audrey has always been a bit quiet. Reserved. Shy.

But after an Incident in March, she’s left unable to function in society. She doesn’t leave the house except for therapy sessions, wears dark glasses even indoors, and has panic attacks at the thought of using the phone, texting, or even emailing.

Her world has shrunk down to the size of a pin, encompassing just her parents and two brothers. Since The Incident, not even her best friend tries to talk to her anymore.

But when her older brother decides to enter a videogame competition and his teammate Linus starts coming over regularly to practice, it turns Audrey’s safe place upside down. Suddenly there’s a stranger in the house, and he’s not familiar with all the unspoken rules the family has adopted to help her cope–like not mentioning her dark glasses, or that the den is off limits to everyone but her.

As Linus starts coming over more often, however, Audrey starts to think he might not be so bad. Certainly not so bad as the people who caused The Incident and left her terrified of people in the first place. In fact, Linus has been challenging her boundaries–in a good way.

The thing I really loved about this book is that while there is a romantic subplot, it’s extremely minor–the story focuses more on the friendship between Linus and Audrey. And while they do get together, it’s not a case of “I’m in love, I’m cured!” Linus helps Audrey build a support system, which then allows her to heal.

I wish I’d had this book back when I was in high school and college. It’s the sort of book I wanted when I was writing The Evie Cappelli Series.

I loved all the characters, including Audrey’s wacky family. With such a closed set, the story really has to be character driven, and Sophie Kinsella does a great job of creating funny, distinct, realistic people to populate Audrey’s life.

My only complaint about this book is that we never get any information about what exactly The Incident is, though in the long run the details don’t really matter. What matters is that Audrey has suffered a trauma, and it is taking her a long time to recover from it.

If you are struggling with mental health, this is a great, light-hearted book to pick up on a bad day.