Review: The Son of Rage and Love by Thomas Raymond

Author: Thomas Raymond

Genre: contemporary

Published: May 21st, 2012

Publisher: Self Published

Rating: 3/5 Stars

Source:  I received this book from the author in exchange for an honest review.

"12 Year-old Daniel used to run, jump, and climb on everything in sight. He played, laughed, made all kinds of noise, took things apart, and built new stuff from the pieces. Unfortunately for him, such acts of nonconformity can make inconvenient ripples on the smooth surface of wealthy suburban bliss. Years ago, Daniel was judged to have ADHD, and soon, "Pills fixed all that. They quiet most of my imagination, and the video swallows up whatever’s left." 
Nowadays, Daniel just wants a little adventure, a bit of unscripted life to clear up the fog of his mundane existence. Every aspect of his life is under strict control of a narcissistic Grandmother, and the minions she hires to run the house. Disillusioned with the "remoras" who worship his mother's money and fame, and certain his older sister is becoming one of them, Daniel has all but given up hope. "I've learned not to fuss . . . A fuss is a big mistake. . . . At least I am smart enough to just take the pill and wait for the fog to roll in." But years of heavy medication coupled with long escapes into video games have turned his world to grey, blurring his perception of reality versus fantasy.
When Daniel's mother adopts a 13 year-old, free-spirited orphan, the two boys become immediate friends and allies. The absolute authority of Grandmother is finally challenged. The ensuing struggle at once gives Daniel hope, but also threatens his sanity.
The Son of Rage and Love is the intense, at times disturbing story of one boy's quest to reclaim his own mind. In a place and time where the appearance of the perfect life is more important than freedom itself, where strong will and disruptive ideas are quickly medicated into quiet indifference, Daniel and his new brother try against the odds to sever the strings for good." ~Goodreads

There are things about being a kid that just suck.  Chief among these is the fact that your entire life is controlled by adults.  If you're lucky the adults in your life are reasonable, caring, responsible human beings.  However, when these people are nut-jobs life gets even more difficult.  This is Daniels life.  He has everything most kids dream about.  Lots of toys, huge birthday parties and all the video games he can play.  But with a controlling grandmother and an absentee starlet mom Daniel has some pretty huge issues.  Thomas Raymond writes a compelling story from Daniel's point of view and really makes his reader think about what is important in life.

LIKES:

• Daniel:  Our main character is an all-together likable kid.  He's caring and adventurous, but he's also a completely sympathetic character.  The reader really feels for Daniel throughout the book and becomes very much attached to him.  
• Jean-Maurice:  This kid made the book for me.  Jean-Maurice is Daniel's new brother.  A refugee, from Haiti, he has seen a lot of suffering at a very young age.  However, rather than being bitter or hard, he is bursting with life and love.  His infectious spirit is exactly what I love about young adult characters.  He puts the whole story into perspective and provides some much needed laughs along the way.
• Grandma was an excellent villain:  Don't get me wrong, I despised this woman, but she is an incredible villain.  She is calculating, cruel and totally unfeeling.  This story could have been about spoiled rich kids, but adding in a grandmother like this gave the story more depth and the kids a better reason to complain.  She is absolutely hate-able, and that's the way I like it!

DISLIKES:

• Janey:  Try as I might, I just couldn't feel for this character.  She is so stuck-up and rude.  I just didn't feel sorry for her at all.  I didn't really even see her place in the story except to give Daniel a sibling.  There was a plot-point toward the end where she was important but other than that she just seemed to be there to be rude and obnoxious.
• Maya:  As with Janey, I couldn't get to know or like Maya.  She just sort of seemed like an airhead to me.  I would have liked to have seen a little more depth to her character.
• Daniel seemed a little too grown-up sometimes:  As much as I liked Daniel, he sometimes seemed a little too old for his age.  Every once in awhile he would start to philosophize about how society brainwashes kids with video games, medication and processed food and it just didn't always feel authentic.

Overall, I really liked this story.  The characters drew me in from the beginning and the story felt relate-able.  It is a fast-paced read with a lot of heart and plenty of quirk.  

Review: What I Didn't Say by Keary Taylor

Author: Keary Taylor

Genre: contemporary, romance, drama

Pages: 326

Published: April 30th, 2012

Publisher: CreateSpace

Rating: 4/5 Stars

Source: NetGalley - I received this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

"Getting drunk homecoming night your senior year is never a good idea, but Jake Hayes never expected it all to end with a car crash and a t-post embedded in his throat. 

His biggest regret about it all? What he never said to Samantha Shay. He's been in love with her for years and never had the guts to tell her. Now it's too late. Because after that night, Jake will never be able to talk again.When Jake returns to his small island home, population 5,000, he'll have to learn how to deal with being mute. He also finds that his family isn't limited to his six brothers and sisters, that sometimes an entire island is watching out for you. And when he gets the chance to spend more time with Samantha, she'll help him learn that not being able to talk isn’t the worst thing that could ever happen to you. Maybe, if she'll let him, Jake will finally tell her what he didn't say before, even if he can't actually say it."-Goodreads

 You know those books that come along and at first they seem okay and maybe sort of hoakie and then the ending is just perfect?  This is one of those books.  After the first couple of chapters I had decided that it was just okay, but by the second half of the book I couldn't get enough.  Jake is happy, popular and in love with Sam Shay.  The only problem is, he doesn't have the guts to tell her that.  After a night of drunken shenanigans he is involved in a horrific accident that causes him to lose his vocal cords and, almost, his life.  Smart, kind, Samantha volunteers to help Jake learn sign language and before too long they don't need words.  As Jake learns more about Sam's life, he realizes that maybe other people have it worse than him.  Throw in a cast of goofy classmates and a huge, loving family and you have What I Didn't Say.   

LIKES:

• Samantha:  Samantha is the quintessential good girl, but even she has secrets.  She is smart, kind and a super overachiever.  She seems pretty perfect and Jake certainly thinks so.  We find out pretty early in the book, however, that Sam's life is anything but perfect. I won't go into detail because I don't want to spoil anything, but let's just say that I don't think I could deal with what Sam has to go through.  And through it all she proves to be strong and capable while maintaining her caring and compassionate nature.  Sam is the type of person that we all aspire to be and it's so hard to read this book without wanting to just give her a big hug.  She definitely needs one.  Despite having huge problems of her own, she wants to help Jake and she works hard to do so.  Their relationship and connection is really amazing and watching that relationship grow and change was just spectacular.  
• Jake's Family:  Jake has a HUGE family.  There are seven kids and his parents, I would live in the yard if there were that many people living in my house.  But even though it's crowded, there's also plenty of love to go around.  These people, even the younger kids, are so supportive it's crazy.  My brother and sister and I fight daily over who has to let the dogs out, but Jake's family is like a big puppy pile of domestic bliss (not that they don't have any fun together of course).  And his mom, oh my god.  She is super mom, she's constantly feeding everyone and having get togethers for the island kids and she's still slightly intimidating, which I think every mom should be.  The family relationships were really nice to see and it added a lot of fun and quirkiness to the story.
• The Ending! (no spoilers, I promise):  I LOVED the ending.  You know how when you're reading a book, you have an idea of the perfect ending, exactly how you would want it to happen in real life?  Well, without giving anything away, this one hit all the right marks.  I actually yelled "YES!" at one point during the last chapter, that is how happy it made me.  This is the type of ending I wish all contemporaries had.  I just had a big goofy smile on my face all day.

DISLIKES:

• Angelic teenagers (sort of):  The kids in the book could be somewhat unbelievable sometimes.  They were just too well behaved. Well, kind of.  There were other things about these kids that made the idea that they were so well behaved really unbelievable.  First there's Jake, who won't swear because his mom ingrained it in him that swearing was bad, but will get trashed at a party and then let his drunk friend drive him around.  Really?  So you won't drop the f-bomb but you'll let Drunky McLush-pants drive you home?  Seriously?  Sorry but I find that a little difficult to wrap my head around.  A good expletive never killed anyone.  And it isn't just Jake.  He explains how there are lots of island parties with red plastic cups and "glass pipes" (wonder what those are for) but these same kids sign a pledge after his accident that they won't drink anymore.  I just don't buy that.
• Ask for help, already! : Something that has always annoyed me in young adult books and movies is when someone is in real trouble, trouble that a parent could help get them out of and they refuse to ask for help.  This usually ends up causing all sorts of problems and then the parent steps in anyway and helps out and all is well.  Can't we just cut out the middle and save ourselves the stress?  Samantha has some pretty sizable issues that she needs to figure out and I couldn't help but think that if Jake just went to his parents they could have helped her.  I suppose we wouldn't really have a book then though.
• Predictability:  There were some aspects of the story-line (especially in the first half of the book) that were just very predictable.  Luckily the second half  more than made up for that.

Overall, I would definitely recommend this to anyone who loves realistic romance, drama and happy endings.    This story will stick with me for a long time and I'll have a hard time not comparing other contemporaries to this one.  

Intangible

Author: J. Meyers

Genre: fantasy, paranormal

Pages: 264

Published: 2012

Publisher: Self Published

Rating: 4/5 Stars

Source:  Received for review from author.

"Twins Sera and Luke Raine have a well-kept secret—she heals with a touch of her hand, he sees the future. All their lives they’ve helped those in need on the sly. They’ve always thought of their abilities as being a gift.
Then Luke has a vision that Sera is killed. That gift they’ve always cherished begins to feel an awful lot like a curse. Because the thing about Luke’s ability? He’s always right. And he can’t do anything about it."

I have read several books about healers or seers and have thoroughly enjoyed them, but this was by far my favorite.  Meyers creates a world that looks just like ours.  Everyone seems normal, except the Raine twins.  But, as the twins soon find out, their world is anything but ordinary.  It is inhabited not only by seers and healers, but by elves, goblins and vampires!  Sera and Luke find themselves caught up in this world while still, for the most part, being unaware of its existence.  No one is what they appear to be, and after depending upon each other their whole lives, the siblings may now have to face the Realm alone.  The story includes a cast of memorable and well-drawn characters from Sera and Luke's protective best friend, the beautiful Fey, and the dark and mysterious Jonas to the handsome and troubled psychic, Marc.  This book is a very approachable and real fantasy.

As usual, let me start with the things I absolutely loved about this book.  First of all, the pace was magnificent.  I think this was aided by the different story tellers.  Each chapter, and sometimes within a chapter, the story teller changes.  This helps with two things:  it speeds up the story and it allows the reader to get to know each of the main characters intimately.  By the end of the book I understood each character's motivations behind their actions, even if the other players did not.  I really connected with all of them.  They are each struggling in their own way with right and wrong and it is impressive to see how Meyers tackles that issue with each individual character.  You can tell she really cares about her creations.  Second, the villain!  Oh my gosh, Lilith was so scary.  She has two forms: intoxicatingly beautiful and frighteningly repulsive and one is scarier than the next.  She is pure evil and delights in the suffering of others.  She even keeps humans in cages as pets that she can torture for fun *shudder*.  At the same time she is very snarky and can be quite amusing.  Having such a diverse and intriguing bad guy was a lot of fun. The third reason I loved this book was because it wasn't what I expected.  It is not just your typical fantasy story, and definitely not a normal vampire novel.  It has some real depth and doesn't focus on the supernatural aspect as much as relationships, trust and loyalty.  

There is really very little I can say about improving this story except that I really want to know more about the Realm, and the more minor characters introduced toward the end (I'm sure Sera and Luke do too!).  I'm sure we will learn more in the sequel (please?).   The only real disappointment I had was in one of the characters, I won't say whom, and their decisions at the end of the book.  I feel like I put a lot of hope into this person and they let me down, but then again, I suppose that was the point.  Sigh.

Overall, this was a fabulous read, and I would definitely recommend it.  It was good freaky fun!  It looks like there will be a sequel and I will certainly be picking that up.  I can't wait to find out what's next for the Raine twins and their paranormal entourage.