THE MAN OF MY DREAMS was all about reality

I read Curtis Sittenfeld's PREP a few years ago and loved the awkward honesty with which she portrayed adolescence. So when I found a hardcover of THE MAN OF MY DREAMS at a thrift store, I snapped it up and binge read.

The same awkward honesty from PREP is omnipresent in THE MAN OF MY DREAMS and was heart-breakingly relateable to my twenty-something self. Reading about Hannah felt like reading about myself.

The way Hannah refuses to follow a mediocre man even if she is comfortable with him. The way that she chooses "the love of her life" but take no action towards capturing it. The way she accepts inferior love because she is afraid to ask for more. All of this felt like parts of my own existence. I was so acutely aware of the detailed feeling that I filled in the gaps in the poetic prose, knowing the nuances underneath the broad strokes made by the Sittenfeld's descriptively sparse but when aimed sentences.

I also really loved Hannah's therapy experiences as well as her extreme reluctance to admit she was seeing a therapist at all. Although I have never been to a therapist, her experiences are exactly how I would want mine to go. Those scenes made me feel like maybe I don't need to be so scared to talk to someone.

Finally, I loved Hannah's ending or beginning. Whatever you want to call it. But I won't say to much about that because you should go read it!

Series Review: Radleigh University Trilogy by Dahlia Adler

If you don't know who Dahlia Adler is, you should go follow her on Twitter and I guarantee if it isn't Shabbos she will make your life better in the first 24 hours. If it is Shabbos, it might take 48. She's a huge resource to the writing community and she makes phenomenal inappropriate comments. Basically, she's a keeper.

You should also go buy her NA Radleigh University trilogy: LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT, RIGHT OF FIRST REFUSAL, and OUT ON GOOD BEHAVIOR.

Lizzie, Cait, and Frankie start off as college roommates and become best friends. Each book chronicles one of the girls' happily ever after and the bumpy ride to get there!

LWaT is Lizzie's story of extreme loss, huge responsibility, and falling for her TA.
RoFR is all Cait and her long lost first love with some NCAA sports and roommate drama thrown in for good measure. (I try to not have favorites in this trilogy because they are all amazing but this might be it)
OoGB is pansexual Frankie trying out monogamy with Cait's new roommate. So. Much. Drama.



I'm actually having a hard time with this review because I thoroughly enjoy these books so much it hard to be serious about it. But really. Adler rocks at the gushy romantic parts, the steamy sexy parts, AND the kickass girl friendship parts. What is not to love?

The only answer is that the trilogy is over!

Can we also talk about these gorgeous covers for a hot second? 

Go read these books. I promise you won't be sorry!

xoxox
LSM

Book Review: WITHOUT BENEFITS

Emma will always be a New Yorker at heart, even though she has a perfect life in Seattle. She has a prestigious job fundraising for the Seattle Symphony, a handsome boyfriend who adores her, and a Belltown apartment with views of the Sound. It should be more than enough to keep her pain from not playing the piano, and her 9/11 nightmares, away. But when her old college crush, Owen, comes back into her life, it’s more than just spending time with him that’s causing cracks in her picture-perfect life. As she steps back on stage, and back into the spotlight, her connection with Owen and his world, dredges up old memories that Emma worked hard to forget. Emma’s past comes back to haunt her, forcing her to face the truth about more than just her fears of returning back to New York. As her once perfect life begins to burn down, Emma is forced to figure out what she really wants: her fundraiser and cocktail party-filled life with her boyfriend, or forging a new future with the one thing, and one person, she’s ever loved–even if it means returning to New York. Without Benefits is a beautiful and moving exploration of modern relationships and family written in the vein of Taylor Jenkins Reid and Renee Carlino.

About the author:

 Nicole Tone is a freelance editor, MFA student, traveler, pet collector, binge-watcher, and a self- proclaimed coffee snob. She lives in Buffalo, NY with her husband, three cats, and two very large dogs, but spends as much of her time in Seattle as possible. You can like her page on Facebook, @ her on Twitter, swoon over dream houses together on Pinterest, and add Without Benefits on Goodreads.


The Review:  I read the first chapter of WITHOUT BENEFITS a while back when Nicole Tone asked for a reader on Twitter. After I finished, I knew I needed this book. When I got my ARC, I was not disappointed. 

I have never played a musical instrument, I have never been a relationship for a decade, and I have never lived in the Pacific-Northwest but Emma's story still felt like my own. She was incredibly easy to empathize with and relate to. Her oscillating feelings of happiness, discontent,, confidence, uncertainty, self-reliance, and dependency felt like the defining characteristics of my own mid-twenties existence. Her journey to rediscover her art, find closure with a college crush and contentment with a seemingly perfect boyfriend, and make a home in a city on the opposite side of the country spoke to me on a universal level. I didn't want to put the book down unless it was to call up Emma herself and schedule a coffee date to commiserate about our confusing lives. Although there are distinctive events that push the story forward, Emma's arc is self-motivated. She realizes she is not living the life she imagined and she might not be as okay with that as she originally thought.  Tone's exploration of interpersonal relationships was superb and couched in her soft prose that drew me farther in with each sentence.

I cannot wait to read this book again when my paperback arrives!

Book Review: THE BLEEDING HEART by Amy Giuffrida

Amy, the lovely and giving human that she is, offered all the members of Bookish Group Press a copy of her book, THE BLEEDING HEART. I devoured it in one sitting. 

It's the story of Brooklyn, a girl with a dark history and a pretty dark way of dealing with it. When meeting a new guy and inflicting pain in her uncle's tattoo shop get mixed up with the all too present remains of her past, she struggles to keep her carefully crafted balance.

I really enjoyed the flawed character of Brooklyn, particularly her self-awareness with how wrong her coping mechanism is. She is fascinated by blood and pain and she knows it. She knows it's not normal, she knows it's bordering on a dangerous obsession but she keeps doing it anyway. Seeing her interactions with the rest of the characters was really interesting and intriguing. It also served to humanize her rather twisted fascination and practice and I loved the potential in her character arc for both positive and negative change.

Without spoiling anything, I will admit that I was frustrated by the ending. I wanted it to end differently for so many reasons. The biggest reason for me is because I felt like there was more potential character growth that was cut short. Even if there had never been a sequel, I wanted the potential set up and the promise of a continuing arc of emotional evolution. The ending didn't allow me that.

Does this book sound like it's a good fit for you? Check out these writing and bookish chances to win a copy! 

Right now, The Midnight Society is running a flash fiction contest and THE BLEEDING HEART is one the prizes! Find out more about it here: http://midnightsocietytales.com/2015/09/29/writing-bloody-flash-fiction-contest/

And book bloggers, don't forget to sign up for the Bookish Group Thankful Tour for a chance to win copies of all of the BGP books! https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1g26oXDNbwpganbhLkgAPIeoyPQYU2Nk0092WUoXhVtw/viewform

Book Review: PUSHING SEND

I received a copy of PUSHING SEND by Jacqueline Ross and Ally Derby from NetGalley in exchange for a review.

This book was not what I expected from the description and cover. That being said, it was a gritty story with solid character arcs and unexpected twists. However, the pacing to me felt slightly off. Perhaps it is the teacher in me but I felt like if I had charted it out like we used to do in middle school, the curve between inciting incident, climax, and denouement would have been a little wonky. I also felt like the voice was a little telling at times, instead of showing. There were points at which I wanted to know what a character's facial expression or their beat movements were.

That being said, I cried over this book and its characters. At some points it is so visceral and painful that it becomes difficult to read. This book isn't perfect but it is different and intriguing. It is borderline contemporary dystopian. By that I mean that everything that could go wrong, does go wrong, the characters are put through the wringer, and then beaten to a pulp afterwards. It struck me as very gritty and harsh for a contemporary.  It is not a happy book. But it might be a good one.  

FINDING CENTER Blog Tour Stop

Finding Center by Katherine Locke
New Adult, Contemporary Romance
District Ballet Company #2
Expected Publication: August 17th, 2015

Zed and ballet are my two greatest loves.

But a tragic accident ripped them from Aly's life six years ago and it took all her strength to get them back. She’s had a long road to recovery and has returned, dancing full-time for The District Ballet Company and carrying Zed’s child. But Aly is slipping. Each day becomes a fight to keep her career from crumbling under the weight of younger talent, the scrutiny of the public eye, and the limitations of her ever-changing body. A fight she fears she’s losing.

I’m scared Aly is broken to her core.

Zed recognizes signs, but he doesn’t know how to fix her. The accident left him with his own demons, and while he wants nothing more than to take care of Aly, it’s getting harder the further she spirals. When Aly’s life is threatened and Zed’s injuries prevent him from saving her, he’s never felt so useless, so afraid he is no longer capable of being the man Aly and their child needs.

With new life comes new hope. And with their fractured lives already hanging by a thread, Aly and Zed must discover if they have what it takes—both together and apart—to rebuild and carry on.

Purchase:

Amazon | B&N

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Review

This book brings together too of my favorite things, ballet and love. I thoroughly enjoyed SECOND POSITION and was super excited to get more ballet and Aly and Zed. I love getting to see them already/still together and working on things. They aren't automatically happily ever after because they're both flawed, real people. The "after the fairytale" side of this book was a huge plus for me. Locke manages to give us excitement, emotional conflict, and a love story after the courting and initial falling in love we saw in SECOND POSITION. 

Aside from Aly and Zed's personal relationship, we saw a lot more ballet world drama in this book and I LOVED IT. As a dancer, choreographer, and teacher myself, I so deeply admire the research Locke has done to get ballet right, which she for the overwhelming most part does. I found myself nitpicking a few tiny details based on MY personal experiences with ballet, pointe shoes, and pregnant ballerinas but in that way we do anything that is so close to ourselves that it's hard to remember that it isn't actually ours. I don't say that as a criticism to Locke but as praise. Her depiction of ballet is incredibly accurate. Whether I use antibiotic cream on my blisters or prefer to drain and dry them is a personal preference that I argue over with my dance friends and I wanted to argue about it with Aly.  Also, Madison is PERFECT. I've known dancers like that, I've know theatre professionals like that. I've shared roles with people like that. The Madisons of the world are a strikingly accurate stock character.

I loved the story here and I really loved the storybook element SPOILERS

keep reading

that has very Center Stage-esque characteristics for me. By that I mean that the ending of Center Stage is fabulous and amazing and more than a little unrealistic. Performing in a Rubies at 17 weeks is hard for me to accept, objectively. As is Zed's return to dance with her on little more than a whim. And Jonathan being like the chillest human being, let alone director, on the planet. I know both are possible and both work in the context of the story but I think of my director and the pregnant ballerinas I've known and just how much they were showing at 17 weeks and how unlikely that would ever be. The pregnant ballerinas I know played parts like Bathilde in Giselle and Siegfried's mother in Swan Lake. They weren't dancing high caliber roles in the skimpy Rubies costume. My director was understanding but would never have let them put on a tutu in a lead role in that condition. Again, my experiences but also what I've observed since I started following professional dancers 15 years ago.  It's not impossible - they are plenty of class pictures of pregnant ballerinas readily available on the internet - and honestly it did not ruin the story for me AT ALL.;It was perfect within the context of the story just as Cooper's motorcycle and Jodi sticking to Jonathan and Juliette before telling Cooper he's sucky boyfriend material but still getting to be his principal is exactly the ending you need to that movie.  I also really loved Aly's last conversation with Madison. What happens to Madison on stage is super common for a young starlet and I loved Aly's reaction. I've been on both sides of that conversation and Locke got it soooo right. But willing suspension of disbelief and all that, Rubies and Aly's triumphant return to ballet - totally believable by the way -are exactly how this book should end and I'm excited to recommend it to all of you.

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About the Author

Katherine Locke lives and writes in a very small town outside of Philadelphia, where she’s ruled by her feline overlords and her addiction to chai lattes. She writes about that which she cannot do: ballet, time travel, and magic. When she’s not writing, she’s probably tweeting. She not-so-secretly believes most stories are fairy tales in disguise. She can be found online at katherinelockebooks.com and on Twitter: @bibliogato.

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Giveaway

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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Magical Realism & Adult vs YA

I am a sucker for magical realism. I love the idea that there is a little magic all around us. That sometimes you can't explain everything and instead of being a bad thing, it just be the best thing ever. Knowing that, it is probably not surprising that I have read two great examples of magical realism in the last week: Sarah Addison Allen's FIRST FROST and Leslye Walton's THE STRANGE AND BEAUTIFUL SORROWS OF AVA LAVENDER. Both lovely, lyrical, and lasting stories, one is YA while the other is adult by category.

*Disclaimer: I'm going to try to keep this about magical realism and not about my issues with the way we categorize books by age/audience/arbitrary silliness. Don't hate me if I can't.

Sarah Addison Allen, I should note, is probably my favorite author after J.K. Rowling.  Her stories are brimming with real, flawed, and resilient characters that weave their way into your heart and don't want to move. Ever. FIRST FROST, her latest novel and a sequel to her first GARDEN SPELLS, this autumn story left me emotionally raw and craving October like a drug. Shelved with the adult books at my library, this book does have several key adult characters but one of the main characters - arguably the one with the pivotal central role - is a 15 year old named Bay who knows where everything belongs, including her heart. Her story arc left my chest aching and my face smiling. It was a fabulous story that told on its own would have easily been show cased on a YA shelf. However, because Bay's story is told within the larger one of a strange October in a stranger town with the strangest family, it's an adult book. This particularly bums me out because I think Bay's story is one a lot of teenagers could stand to read.

Okay, I'm tangenting about my category issue.

Back to my other example, Leslye Walton's THE STRANGE AND BEAUTIFUL SORROWS OF AVA LAVENDER. This book made me think of THE HOUSE OF IMPOSSIBLE LOVES by Cristina Lopez Barrio with its whimsical house setting and the unhappy, unusual women in the family. This book, like Allen's FIRST FROST told not just the story of Ava Lavender herself but of her whole family, both past and present, that was struggling with their otherness, their broken hearts, and their difficulty in communicating with each other and with those around them. This book was as much about Ava's family as it was about her. Ava's arc, though darker than Bay's was equally lasting. I'm still still mulling over both of them.

Okay, I give up. Writing this only highlights how similar these books are and they're literal shelves apart. The main distinction is that AVA is written in a well-informed first person while FIRST FROST is a mostly omniscient third person. Besides that, I cannot draw hard lines between the YA and Adult categories (not that narration is a line either but it is a difference at least). They both mention/depict sex - more graphically so in AVA surprisingly enough. They both talk about family and friendship and growing up even after you're out of your teens. All solid story elements. Especially in light of the recent discussions of whether YA is for or about teenagers, I wonder how our system of categories is harming our community of readers.   I'm not really sure what I'm trying to say. Maybe that I'm confused. That I know adults who don't read YA (*rolls eyes*) but love Sarah Addison Allen and I think they're hypocrites? Maybe. That I wonder how many teenagers would really benefit from reading about Bay but won't venture out of the YA room? Maybe. That I don't know how what the answer is and it makes me frustrated? Absolutely.

Four Fabulous Recent Reads

In my nomadic travels, I am currently in Ohio and my Ohio library has one of the best YA sections I've seen. It was by this train of luck that I picked up three stellar new releases that all lived up to their reputations.

UNDER A PAINTED SKY by Stacey Lee was a historical fiction I could fall in love with. And I did! It's diverse and messy and full of heart.

SAINT ANYTHING by Sarah Dessen. Let me just say, there is a reason we call Sarah Dessen the Queen of YA. I learn something new about myself with every book of hers that I read. She isn't afraid to tackle big issues and deep relationships and it makes her books the kind that burrow into your soul.

THE CEMETERY BOYS by Heather Brewer. This book was creepy and fun and sad and insightful. It wasn't quite what I expected but it was still a great read.

I also recently read SECOND POSITION by Katherine Locke which, although not from my local library, was a fantastic read. It will break your heart and sew it back together. And it will give you such an insight into dancers. Although not a dancer herself, Locke gets it right from the physical to the emotional and everything in between.

Each of these books undoubtedly deserved a fuller review of its own but with my 50 work week this is all I have time for. What are you guys reading this summer?

xoxox
L.S. Mooney

Misty Copeland: dancer, author, trailblazer... basically everything

About two days before Misty Copeland made history as the first black woman to hold the position of Principal with American Ballet Theatre, I finished her book, LIFE IN MOTION: An Unlikely Ballerina.

The book was a very interesting read. I remember seeing Misty on the cover of Pointe in a yellow leotard about a decade ago when she was still fresh blood in the ballet world. Her book expands the snippets from that long ago article, her transient childhood, her very late start to ballet, her struggle to find her place as a black ballerina in a world obsessed with milk white swans. However, her book is filled with hope and reflection, not bitterness or righteous anger. It was a thoughtful read. I was occasionally confused with the way she chronologically jumped around but her story is inevitably intriguing.

I have an admittedly odd perception of ballet because I grew up as one of the only white girls in an inner city ballet company filled with black, Hispanic, and occasionally Korean dancers. It never occurred to me that a swan shouldn't be black or that you can't have big boobs and still rock a lead role. The first time I saw The Nutcracker (which was with this company), Clara, the Snow Queen. Sugar Plum Fairy, and her cavalier were all black as well as most of the party girls, snow flakes, and many other corps and soloist roles. But it wasn't The Chocolate Nutcracker that Misty writes about in her book, this was the classic story, the classical choreography and costumes but it was filled with racial diversity. For ten years that was all I knew. That was my ballet world.

In my teens, I started to follow professional companies and dancers but true to my white privilege I didn't notice the contrasting lack of diversity. Then Aesha Ash left NYCB because she couldn't make it out of the corps and I finally started to take notice. I love Misty's story, I love that she is breaking the preconceptions of what ballet is and who it is for. But I admit, I still struggle to understand why she has to break them. Why, in 2015, is this still a thing? She's a phenomenal dancer, a striking stage presence - of course she should be promoted to principal along with Stella Abrera who has also long toiled in hope of reaching the top. I really cannot fathom that it was ever a question that she shouldn't play Odette/Odile in Swan Lake, she is perfect for it.

Her book really got me thinking and despite its generally positive outlook, I found myself frustrated by her experiences of discrimination or just lack of understanding by her peers and fellow professionals. I love ballet and its traditions and its idiosyncrasies but I want the larger ballet world to like my microcosm. I want colorful ballet and I don't want it to be news. I want it to be normal.

Until then, CONGRATULATIONS MISTY!  

Scream and Shout for THE GEEK GIRL'S GUIDE TO CHEERLEADING!

THE GEEK GIRL'S GUIDE TO CHEERLEADING  by Charity Tahmaseb and Darcy Vance follows Bethany and her best friend Moni as they try out for Varsity Cheerleading, unexpectedly make the squad, and deal with the consequences. Is a geek with pom-poms still a geek?

I really enjoyed this book partially because I was the artsy girl who went out for football cheerleading as a senior and partially because I had the biggest crush on the team captain and partially because I fought with my friends over it and partially because it is just so well written.

But that run-on sentence aside, Tahmaseb and Vance understand high school girls, the social hierarchy, and geek friendship. They understand crushes and first loves and heartbreak and family. Also, how uncomfortably short cheer uniforms are. And how sweet freshmen boys can be. And ugh. This book, ok?

I don't want to give anything away but if you love geeks, sports, and romance this book is for you.