Hello everyone!

Sorry I was pretty MIA last month, I had a bunch of different competitions I was at and haven't had much time to read.

I picked this book up on a whim after spotting it in the library and remembering all the hype over it and this book did not disappoint. 

I'll Give You the Sun follows a pair of twins named Noah and Jude who are inseperable. After a tragic accident, they stop talking to each other and completely destroy their relationship. The way this book is written is in a before/after plotline with 13 year old Noah narrating before and 16 year old Jude narrating after. It's honestly the kind of book you don't want to know much about before going into because the plot can easily get spoiled in a summary. 

I expected this book to be a contemporary novel, but it actually contains some magical elements. I still would not call it full-on fantasy, yet I was definitely taken aback by the sudden magic so do be warned. 

This book took me a while to get into, just because the beginning feels a bit slow and it takes a while to become invested into the story. Last year, I tried to read this book but I stopped before the end of the first chapter (no, I was not being quick to judge, the chapters are very long). You have to meet the characters and learn their quirks, then wait for the story to take off. About 200 pages in, the plotline took off for me and I finished the rest of the book in a matter of a few hours. The way it's written made me read physically slower as well, with the heavy metaphors that took a few seconds to digest. 

Both points of view had little quirks to them with Noah's being art and metaphors while Jude's were excerpts from a family Bible. I found the imagery from Noah's narration a bit jarring at first, sometimes saying how he felt in actions. His metaphors were like those in We Were Liars but I found myself quickly able to adjust. He also would paint beautiful images of how he felt, giving the trees and sky different colors based on his mood. Along with that, he'd stop at random moments in the story and create imaginary self-portraits with descriptive titles to show how he truly felt. They helped me understand his character a lot and how he wanted ro react to situations. In Jude's narration, she would point out different Bible excerpts based on an action that happened and what type of luck the action correlated to.

I wasn't a huge feeler on the emotional level with this book because I felt as though a lot of what happened was predictable. There were moments that made me sad or laugh, but I wasn't as affected by the feels as a lot of people have said they were with this book.

That's the end of my non-spoiler review, so come back when you've read I'll Give You the Sun so we can discuss. Comment below letting me know what you're currently reading as well as some contemporary suggestions that you think I would enjoy. Bye non-spoilers!

I loved both Noah and Jude and I was really surprised that there wasn't one specific narration that I enjoyed more. As I was reading each narrator, they became my favorite, but it would immediately switch with the narrator. When I usually read from multiple points of view, I tend to only like one point of view, but I was pretty evenly split with this book. I did enjoy Noah's a tad bit more because I loved his romance and also the language used.

Noah was an absolutely adorable character because he was so solidly himself. I loved everything about him, down to his phrases such as a "functioning umbrella." Some of the self-portrait titles were hilarious while others were heartbreaking and made me want to go hug him. His romance with Brian was adorable and made me so happy to read about, but I didn't like the way it ended. I wanted by ship to be together, but it felt way too perfect that Jude was able to suddenly get Brian to see Noah after years of ignoring him. 

I liked reading from Jude's point of view because she was broken in so many ways. Watching her piece herself back together slowly made me proud of her as a character because she had to go a bit backward to move forward. Her romance with Oscar felt a bit too predictable and also made me a little uncomfortable. Having them wait until she was out of high school would've made the ending a bit more realistic and I would've felt better as a reader. 

When we met Guillermo, I knew that he was in love with Noah and Jude's mom, which took away a lot of the big reveal for me. A lot of the plot felt predictable in that case, but I nonetheless enjoyed it. Guillermo was so much fun for me because he was such a lively person with Oscar and just reading about his sculptures made me wish I could see them in person.

Overall, I had a lot of fun reading I'll Give You the Sun and am very glad I picked it up. Please comment below and tell me what you thought of it as well as what your favorite part was.

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Thank you for reading and I’ll talk to you soon,

Caramel

​Hi guys,

So I'm crammed on an airplane right now and on the verge of hysterical sobbing because no one warned me about this book. I'd gotten endless recommendations to read it, especially from Butter, who absolutely LOVES Andrew Smith. When I was picking out books to bring with me on my trip, this made the list, and something about the sarcastic tone of the book pulled me right in.

I actually read most of it on various planes, compelled by the writing style of Andrew Smith. Even though the book was severely lacking in a well-defined plot, I couldn't get enough of the story and characters, mainly because I had a bunch of different theories all regarding what was going to happen to all the characters. This book has a very lighthearted tone, but that takes a huge plunge right in the last 30 or so pages.

Reading it, I was expecting something that was really more on the shallow side than on the intense philosophy side, thus making it the perfect book for a vacation. What I actually feel now, is very VERY upset. The amount of feels associated with this book is not light at ALL, so please take that into consideration when you decide to read this book.

Oh yeah, a summary might be good. Now, I didn't know anything about Winger going into it, except that it was about rugby. Honestly, you really don't need to know anything about the book to go into it, and I'd even count knowing that there was a very feels-intense ending as a spoiler. For those of you who want to know some more about it, Winger is about Ryan Dean West, a fourteen-year-old junior at a high school for rich kids whose parents choose to send them away. He's on the varsity rugby team, so his only real friends are with him on the rugby team. For his junior year, he gets moved to O-Hall, where all the 'bad' kids go, away from his friends and stuck with people he really doesn't like. The book mainly covers his junior year and how he deals with changes that are going on in his life.

I'd probably give it around a 4.25-4.5 stars (I know, the decimals, but I love decimals), since I had some problems with Ryan Dean, but some of the other characters and the way Andrew Smith handled Ryan Dean's character made up for it.

Now, it's time for my spoiler-filled rant, because I can't with the feels anymore. If you haven't yet read Winger, go read the book then come back to discuss it with me. Trust me with this book, you want the full effect.

• Ryan Dean: Let's just take a moment with Ryan Dean because, most of the book, I honestly couldn't stand him. He was cocky, extremely womanizing, he had a one track mind, and couldn't figure out why in the world everyone didn't like him. I thought he was alright, until he decided to play poker and get drunk doing it. When he had his hangover, I just blocked out the whole event in my mind, saying that he'd learned his lesson not to drink. But then he goes, later in the book, getting drunk AGAIN. Come on, Ryan Dean, please value your fourteen-year-old brain. But that paled in comparison to the way he treated women. Every time he introduced a new female character, he always had to talk about how attractive he found them, using various scales and always coming up with a little nickname that he used every time we saw the character. He led Megan on, but claimed that he was in love with Annie. Whenever Ryan Dean talked to Joey, he always brought up the fact that Joey was gay, saying things like 'in a non-gay way' or 'that's the gayest thing I've ever done' when Joey was around or just with his friends. It bothers me to no end that people, especially the male population, continue to be so insecure about their sexuality that they always have to clarify what they're doing. In summary, Ryan Dean West was a living, breathing contradiction, which is exactly what saved him for me. He was a true teenager, really unsure of what he was doing and what had consequences. His intentions were good, but he could never keep up with a solid plight to approach executing them in the best way possible. I really enjoyed the fact that Andrew Smith hadn't chosen an indie approach to his character by making them a well versed, philosophical being, but instead making Ryan Dean someone who had no idea what was going on with him, since that rang the most true for me. The only moment that I remember entirely liking him was during the dance, just because he'd realized who he'd let himself become and tried his best to correct all of his ways. I actually shipped him with Joey and hoped that they would have a moment during the iPod scene. After having finished the book, I really wonder even more now if Joey would have died if that had happened.

• Joey: I cannot stand it one second longer, so we need to talk about Joey. Joey was just this moral compass kind of character, he was such a GOOD person at heart, despite being in O-Hall and all the other negativity surrounding him. During the entire book, he was the one who was always telling Ryan Dean to get his act together and stop being the little brat he kept acting like. I absolutely loved Joey, he understood exactly what came along with coming out, but he didn't let that stop him for even one second from being exactly who he knew he was. Joey was just a lovable character during the whole book, but my favorite scene with him was probably during the Screaming Ned scene, just because he only saw the good in Ned. He drove around town and got stuck in a creek out of the pure goodness of his heart at 3am to drive an old man home. The reason, at least the reason that I see, that Ryan Dean liked Joey so much is because Joey was so fully accepting of Ryan Dean, even though he was only 14 and kind of a jerk. Joey treated him exactly how he treated everyone, which was one of my favorite things about him. I honestly thought that he was going to end up with Ryan Dean by the end of the book, especially at that last scene when he just had this look in his eyes while they were talking. I'm so upset that he died, since he was the only character that I truly liked in the story.

• Annie: Annie was...boring. I really didn't think too much of her. She was smart, artistic, athletic and that was really all there was to her character. She always kept telling herself that she couldn't like Ryan Dean, but I really didn't feel too much anticipation towards it. I was honestly kind of bored with Annie, which is possibly because Ryan Dean idolized her, so there really were no faults to see. There weren't any particular moments when I had very strong feelings of like or dislike towards her, just a constant blah type feeling.

• Overall Thoughts: So I really did enjoy reading Winger, despite my problems with some characters. I was very entertained and will definitely be reading Stand Off once I get home. I'm a bit confused because everyone did say that Winger ended on a cliff-hanger, but there really isn't too much that seems like I need a dire answer to. Honestly the book could've survived as a stand-alone with an abrupt ending. I'm not sure how much I'll enjoy the second book, especially since there will be a lack of Joey, but I'm still going to give it a try. I loved the little cartoons and graphs in there, but I loved the hardcover design even more, with the actual picture on the front, then a full watercolor marker sketch mirrored. I had a lot of fun with this, since it was my first Andrew Smith book and I hope to pick up his other books soon.

Thanks for reading, make sure to keep up with all of our OUSF updates by following us on the links below!

Caramel

*On the left is the US cover and the right is the UK cover (I really like the UK cover better but to each his own).*

Hi guys, I just finished Extraordinary Means and I realized I haven't posted a full book review in a while. I have so many thoughts about this book anyways that I might as well do one. Just for everyone who hasn't read this book, here's a little bit about it. There's a new strand of TB going around called Total Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis (TDR-TB). It's highly contagious, so people who have it usually have to either be on house arrest or at a sanatorium, which is kind of like an institute filled with people with the disease. We follow Lane, who has just been diagnosed with TDR-TB and is moving into a sanatorium called Latham House. While he is there, he finds a girl from his past, Sadie, and the two become friends, but we obviously know more than just friendship occurs.

A lot of people have been comparing this book to The Fault in Our Stars (TFIOS), saying that it sounds like the same thing. This is a major pet peeve of mine, when people compare books of a similar genre saying that they're the same thing. If I have to hear one more person say that a dystopian novel is 'just like The Hunger Games', I will lose it. Although this book and TFIOS do have a lot of similar aspects, such as two diseased teenagers falling in love, they have a lot of different points as well. While in TFIOS Hazel's parents played a strong role in her life and she was allowed to leave the confinements of her house, the characters in Extraordinary Means rarely talk to their parents and can't leave the sanatorium. I wouldn't go to say that they're completely different and that no one should compare the two, I just think that people should stop giving Robyn Schneider so much flak and saying that she copied John Green.

Aside from that, I enjoyed this book but I did not love it. I'm starting to sense a pattern in Robyn's books that go something like this: Try-hard guy that's super focused on school meets manic pixie dream girl who couldn't care less and shows him that there's more to life than just studying, they date and then she basically leaves him, saying that he doesn't need her and the only reason he's attatched to her is because he likes the way he is around her better than his original self. Guy then has a 4-page spiel on how she's right with a sudden realization, then pledges to be the person he was with her. The end. Having read all of her books, I feel like this is getting really tiring because I feel as though it is the same story, just slightly different. I want her to try and vary her pattern, but I do enjoy her writing style. I'm going to jump into my spoiler-filled character evaluation, so if you don't want to be spoiled, go get read this book and come back to finish discussing it.

Lane: I liked Lane, but he was so overly ignorant which got annoying very quickly. He just kept trying to live a life that he wasn't a part of anymore, convinced it was just a minor illness that would go away if he acted like it wasn't there. I liked a lot of things he said, though, because he had some really good points he made. For some reason, Robyn's male leads just seem not really fleshed out, but just like some studious kid with no real personality. It makes me sad that I didn't really feel any personality from the narrator, but he didn't have any quirks that were defining to him.

Sadie: Sadie, on the other hand, had so many quirks that I probably can't even remember them all. I loved when she made everyone dress up for the pajama night because it was just so normal for all of the chaos going on with the characters. Sometimes, she could be a manic pixie dream girl, mainly when I was reading from Lane's point of view. I felt like she was being really selfish by leaving Latham house. Even though I have sympathy for the fact that they're all stuck there, they endangered the lives of other people and children just to have fun. It really bothered me that she didn't think of any consequences, whether or not people's lives were at stake. Another time she showed that was when she showed Charlie how to turn off his sensor, ignoring that THERE IS A REASON THEY WEAR SENSORS. The fact that she would've died much sooner without her sensor struck me as very cruel irony. I can't say that I didn't see it coming when she died, because Lane was just too average to die for a Robyn Schneider book.

The Romance: I felt like their romance was really fast, almost instalove but not quite. They kept staring away at each other and I felt like they needed to get to know each other first as friends before attempting to start a relationship. Once they actually did start dating, I felt like they were neglecting their friend group a lot, especially since Sadie only had 1 real one-on-one conversation with Marina after Lane and Sadie started dating. I thought it was really cute that they talked on the phone all night but I feel like that's starting to get overused with books.

Nick: I hated Nick, but I was supposed to, so congrats Robyn Schneider: acheivement unlocked. I did feel bad for him, because he lost his best friend to Lane, then his new best friend to death and then could've prevented the death of his old best friend. No one really notices the tragedy Nick has gone through, but I still think he needed to sober up. Nothing in life is an excuse for wasting yourself away, because there is always something to stay alive for. He could've changed the entire outcome of the story, but he was a bum and he didn't. 

I didn't really have many strong feelings about Marina and Charlie since they weren't really present during a lot of the story.

Overall, I enjoyed this book but I don't think it's something I'll be re-reading. It had it's funny moments, it's quotable moments, but just didn't have that emotional push. Better luck next time, Robyn.

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See you later with another post,
Caramel