Friday, July 31, 2015
Thursday, July 30, 2015
BLUE IS THE WARMEST COLOR
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| SYNOPSIS:
Originally published in French as Le bleu est une couleur chaude, Blue is the Warmest Color is a graphic novel about growing up, falling in love, and coming out. Clementine is a junior in high school who seems average enough: she has friends, family, and the romantic attention of the boys in her school. When her openly gay best friend takes her out on the town, she wanders into a lesbian bar where she encounters Emma: a punkish, confident girl with blue hair. Their attraction is instant and electric, and Clementine find herself in a relationship that will test her friends, parents, and her own ideas about herself and her identity.
First published in French by Belgium's Glénat, the book has won several awards, including the Audience Prize at the Angoulême International Comics Festival, Europe's largest. The film Blue Is the Warmest Color won the Palme d'Or at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival.
REVIEW:
I am new to graphic novels, the first one I read Fun House I found undesirable, but I am not one to give up very easy, so I checked this one out from the library and guess what? It is phenomenal between the depth of the story and striking graphics I am in awe. For those of you that are unfamiliar with graphic novels they are nothing like comic books with graphic novels the story is more complex and finished in one book unlike comic books that are short parts of a story that come out in issues over time. A very interesting fact about graphic novels is that they pre-date comic books the first graphic novel was published in 1783 while the first comic book in 1837.
The prose of this read contains numerous tones such as personal growth, life and death, love, betrayal, forgiveness, and so much more creating a phenomenal tale of two individuals. Therefore, stunning me further such a sophisticated novel can be written in dialogue balloons and captions. The story felt too short yet the quality of writing it contains made up for it bizarre as it is wanting the story not to end is the only bad thing I could come up with about Blue is the Warmest Color.
Next is the graphics which are mind-blowing. They are startlingly lifelike looking comparable to actual photographs the graphics are so detailed from the facial expressions to the little things such as a piece of trash on the ground or the door hinges. There are a lot of areas in this novel that the graphics, for example, the facial expressions communicate so well on their own the author did not even place words as well with the color blue.
Then put together both the prose and graphics and you have something astonishing. Sensational graphics that will show you what is happening takes storytelling to a whole new level. Some readers might argue that it takes away from using your own imagination to picture what is going on, but I say no everyone will look at the graphics in a different way. Also, each time you look at the graphics you pick up something new you missed the first time. It also is just not a book for lesbians either, it is for everyone. You can learn a lot from this book. I was reminded to live every day to it's fullest and holding grudges gets you nowhere.
 
About this author:
Julie Maroh (born 1985) is an author and illustrator originally from northern France. She studied comic art at the Institute Saint-Luc in Brussels and lithography and engraving at the Royal Academy of Arts in Brussels, where she still lives. LINKS: |
Friday, July 24, 2015
Half-Life
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| SYNOPSIS: Half a life is not worth living.
Probably not a good idea to take advice from your dead twin sister. High school sophomore Trisha Traynor and friends have played the Halloween mirror game for years, the one that’s supposed to show a glimpse of the guy they’ll marry. But no one’s ever seen anything. Until tonight—when Trisha is gob smacked by the candlelit arrival of her long-deceased twin sister, instead of her crush, Kirk Maxwell.
In a voice and vision that only Trisha can hear and see, Chessie claims to be back on a compassionate journey. Trisha fears she’s gone nuthouse crazy. But she nonetheless follows the instructions Chessie outlines in their nightly conversations, until she finds herself stepping across some ethical lines, and probably ending all chances with Kirk.
When a sisterly showdown ensues, resulting in the shattering of the mirror, Chessie’s gone again, and a heartsick Trisha sets about righting her recent wrongs. That is until she stumbles upon the real reason Chessie had come back and the most important glimpse yet that the mirror could never predict.
REVIEW:
As an adult, I have to admit I do enjoy reading young adult literature yet, with this book the 108 pages I endured was more than enough. I loath writing reviews on books that I am not fond of but as a reviewer, I have to be honest regarding how I feel concerning the book and how it is written. The blurb of the book gave the idea there was going to be a creepiness factor, for instance, a teenage girl seeing her dead twin sister in the mirror reads an eerie book ahead. The sad fact of the matter is the book contained nothing frightening not even a hang nail. None the less the mother in the book did make my skin crawl since her character is overwritten in the despair department. The prose was light focusing primarily on teenage drama. However, the author did add to the plot a positive point to the story which helped this read a great deal. Even though this book was not my cup of tea I am sure there are pre-teens that will enjoy this book.
This book is under the genre young adult which in literature is traditionally written for ages ranging 16 to 25. I think this book falls more under teen fiction, which is written for ages 10 to 15.
LINKS:
BOOK DETAILS:
Half-Life by Tina Ferraro
Published by Leap Books
Publication date: March, 24th, 2015
Genres: Paranormal, Young Adult
ISBN: 1616030267
Pages: 108
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About this author:
| I am the author of three young adult novels with Random House: Top Ten Uses for an Unworn Prom Dress, How to Hook a Hottie, and The ABC's of Kissing Boys (AKA Ten Ways to Kiss a Hottie). In addition, I self-published The Starter Boyfriend and released a Lunchbox YA romance, Stupid Cupid.
I've been writing since I learned to hold a pencil and sold upwards of a hundred short stories to national magazines before turning to novels. I share a home in the L.A. area with my rocket scientist husband, some demanding cats, and whichever of our grown kids is in town. My interests include Facebook Scrabble, the color orange, and chasing coyotes out of the neighborhood.
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Thursday, July 23, 2015
HARDWIRED
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| SYNOPSIS:
Award-winning teacher Clary Stone is home for the summer, helping her family and recovering from a personal tragedy. She loves her Wisconsin city on Lake Michigan, hoping to find what’s left of herself in the familiar warmth and safety. At first, the city is the same, but she soon finds things have changed. Clary becomes involved in parts of the town that she’s never seen or known before. The summer’s odd journey leads her to the city’s homeless shelter for small children.
Leefe Ellis manages the shelter and is totally unlike anyone Clary’s ever met. Homeless since the age of three, Leefe reveals another side of life with remarkable courage, honesty, and humanity. Working side by side with the little children, both realize they are fellow travelers, but neither has met another person as completely different as they are from each other. It’s often confusing, sometimes frightening, but always fascinating.
REVIEW:
This book pulled at my heart with both sorrow and joy. The plot is a huge eye opener that needs to be more publicized. The prose was not of great depth, but the author did a wonderful job in portraying the seriousness of homeless children. Therefore, also what optimism and ambition can do to make a difference in not only someone else's life but your own. As a reader, you will learn something from this book. Rowlands did a magnificent job developing the main characters Clary and Leefe. I found the descriptiveness in this book spectacular. Though this book is fiction, I hope that the programs for the homeless children in this read are based on fact. Most people think of the homeless as only adults that have mental issues this being far from the actual truth. Everyone falls on hard luck, some worse than others the crushing part is when people cannot get themselves out of this situation. This book helps in understanding the truth for the children displaced due to homelessness. I would like to thank C.P. Rowlands for bringing this issue to the public's attention.
"Thank you Netgalley for allowing me to review this book"
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About this author
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LINKS:
Wednesday, July 22, 2015
Sunday, July 19, 2015
Fun Home NOT Fun
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| SYNOPSIS:
A fresh and brilliantly told memoir from a cult favorite comic artist, marked by gothic twists, a family funeral home, sexual angst, and great books.
This breakout book by Alison Bechdel is a darkly funny family tale, pitch-perfectly illustrated with Bechdel's sweetly gothic drawings. Like Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis, it's a story exhilaratingly suited to graphic memoir form. Meet Alison's father, a historic preservation expert and obsessive restorer of the family's Victorian home, a third-generation funeral home director, a high school English teacher, an icily distant parent, and a closeted homosexual who, as it turns out, is involved with his male students and a family babysitter. Through narrative that is alternately heartbreaking and fiercely funny, we are drawn into a daughter's complex yearning for her father. And yet, apart from assigned stints dusting caskets at the family-owned "fun home," as Alison and her brothers call it, the relationship achieves its most intimate expression through the shared code of books. When Alison comes out as homosexual herself in late adolescence, the denouement is swift, graphic — and redemptive.
REVIEW:
What I was expecting this book to be and what I got out of it were telescopic. I gave this book two stars due to the great illustrations. How thrilling this book is going to be I thought due to the fact that it is a graphic memoir about a lesbian and her relationship with her father well, I was duped. The book is predominantly told in a way that meshed other books and their characters, for instance, The Odyssey, Homer, Proust, Wilde, etc. into the ongoing plot. Making this read intolerable for readers who loath Greek mythology or a lot of the time making the story confusing. Furthermore, the profuseness of the grammar is too excessive for a graphic novel. For a memoir, the protagonist was undeveloped. She came off atrocious and unkind. Yet, I felt deep sympathy for her father. He was unable to become the person he truly was in life due to the era he lived in. Yet, in his own way he still tried to be true to himself which the daughter ridiculed relentlessly.
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Saturday, July 18, 2015
Winner of The Camelot Shadow eBook Giveaway!
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| RACHEL D. For entering The Camelot Shadow eBook Giveaway! |
Thank you all who entered the giveaway and for participating in the blog hop. I hope you come
back to visit Readaholic Zone soon.
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