Past Perfect

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Past Perfect by Leila SalesPast Perfect by Leila Sales
Publisher: Simon Pulse
Number of pages: 322
My copy: ebook review copy from Galley Grab

All Chelsea wants to do this summer is hang out with her best friend, hone her talents as an ice cream connoisseur, and finally get over Ezra, the boy who broke her heart. But when Chelsea shows up for her summer job at Essex Historical Colonial Village (yes, really), it turns out Ezra’s working there too. Which makes moving on and forgetting Ezra a lot more complicated…even when Chelsea starts falling for someone new.

Maybe Chelsea should have known better than to think that a historical reenactment village could help her escape her past. But with Ezra all too present, and her new crush seeming all too off limits, all Chelsea knows is that she’s got a lot to figure out about love. Because those who don’t learn from the past are doomed to repeat it….

* * *

Oh how this cover lies. This cover has absolutely nothing to do with the story, no matter how cute it looks. I know covers are really for sales, and I may be able to forgive this if the book gets more sales because of the cover. Still, I can’t see any connection.

But anyway, in Past Perfect, Chelsea is stuck in the past — literally and figuratively. Chelsea is back to work for the summer in the Essex Historical Colonial Village, where she dresses up as a colonial woman named Elizabeth Connelly, and it was really the last place she wanted to be. She wanted to get out even more when she finds that her ex-boyfriend and first love, Ezra, is also working in Essex. And she’s far from getting over him. But when Chelsea falls for a guy from the Civil War Reenactmentland next door who has been at war with Essex for as long as they can remember, it makes Chelsea’s summer a little more complicated than what she expected.

Past Perfect is my first Leila Sales read, but I’ve been curious about her other book, Mostly Good Girls, because of the good reviews it has been getting. I was really glad that Galley Grab had this up in their list. :) I love that the book is set in a historical village — I’m not too fond of history back in school, but if I had the chance to visit places like this, I probably would like it a lot more! I’m not sure if we have a historical village here in the Philippines. I think the closest we have of one is in Vigan, Ilocos Sur, but I don’t think it’s even close to what Chelsea had at Essex.

Chelsea is a real darling in this novel, and she’s someone I would like to be friends with. She’s funny, witty and honest — far from perfect as she makes some pretty stupid decisions in the book, but all in good faith and she learned from it in the end. I liked how even if she didn’t really like working in Essex, she still considers her friends there as family, at least even for the summer. I wasn’t able to get any summer jobs when I was in school because summer was really just for lazing around or attending YFC activities, but I also do know the feeling of having a “summer family”. I also really liked Fiona, Chelsea’s best friend. She seems like a really good friend and one of those who will definitely have your back even if she seems flighty at first. The supporting characters were also quite stellar, and I think the thing that made them so fun was the war. I don’t think I could ever be a part of a war like that. I have no competitive bone in my body. I loved reading about the strategies and the intimidation and such, though. :D

I also liked how the idea of moving on is tackled in this book. It’s true: sometimes we tend to idolize certain experiences or people because they’re the only things we can hold onto when it’s all over, but when you really think about it, these moments in history aren’t always the shining, shimmering, splendid moments we thought they were. We tend to wear rose-colored glasses over some things and people, and when it’s time to move on, we need to remove it and see things as they really are and not as what we want it. I liked how this lesson was juxtaposed with the actual historical setting that the characters worked in. It made what Chelsea learned more resonant somehow.

I didn’t exactly fall head over heels in love with this book, because the “I could relate to this!” factor was kind of low. However, it is a very fun novel, and I can’t think of anything that I disliked about this. Now to get myself a copy of Mostly Good Girls. :)

Rating: [rating=3]

Other reviews:
Chachic’s Book Nook
G-Reads!
inkcrush
Hobbitsies
Good Books and Good Wine
Forever Young Adult

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Want Books: Falling Together by Marisa de los Santos

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Want Books? is a weekly meme hosted at Chachic’s Book Nook and features released books that you want but you can’t have for some reason. It can be because it’s not available in your country, in your library or you don’t have the money for it right now.

I really can’t believe that I didn’t know about Marisa de los Santos’ new book until Chachic added it to her wish list. I can’t believe it. And I call myself a fan. Hmph.

But I think I have heard about her writing a new book, shortly after I read (and swooned!) over Belong to Me. I remember feeling sad that there would be no more Cornelia and Teo (swoon!), but because I’ve loved her writing so much, I know I want to read other books she’d release. And now a new one is upon us. :)

Falling Together by Marisa de los SantosFalling Together by Marisa de los Santos
William Morrow and Company, Released October 1, 2011

What would you do if an old friend needed you, but it meant turning your new life upside down? Pen, Will, and Cat met during the first week of their first year of college and struck up a remarkable friendship, one that sustained them and shaped them for years – until it ended abruptly, and they went their separate ways. Now, six years later, Pen is the single mother of a five-year-old girl, living with her older brother in Philadelphia and trying to make peace with the sudden death of her father. Even though she feels deserted by Will and Cat, she has never stopped wanting them back in her life, so when she receives an email from a desperate-sounding Cat asking her to meet her at their upcoming college reunion, Pen goes. What happens there sends past and present colliding and sends Pen and her friends on a journey across the world, a journey that will change everything.

Marisa is half-Filipino, and she always had little Filipino flavors in her books (such as Teo being half-Filipino and the pancit cooking scene in Love Walked In). In her Amazon interview, she said that some parts of the book was set in the Philippines, and that got me even more excited. I love what she said here:

In Falling Together, Pen goes to the Philippines in search of her friend, but I think she finds more than that. She sits in a banca boat with a school of jackfish shoaling beneath it and thinks, awestruck, “All this time, every second: this.” She experiences the world as big and small at the same time. While I sit at my desk, drive my children around, sleep under my roof, all the time, every second, there is another version of home, my home, vibrantly alive and unfolding itself thousands of miles away. The least I could do was put it in a book.

I like that even in her interview, she sounds so eloquent. :)

Anyway, I haven’t seen a copy of this yet, but since this book is not YA, I have a feeling it will be a bit more expensive than usual. I hope they release a paperback version of this soon. In the meantime, I will content myself with the excerpt (which is, frankly, too short). :P

Posted in: Wishlist \ Tagged: ,

Forbidden

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Forbidden by Ted Dekker and Tosca Lee

Forbidden by Ted Dekker by Tosca Lee
The Books of Mortals # 1
Publisher: Center Street
Number of pages:  384
My copy: ebook, review copy from Netgalley

A terrible truth has been revealed to one man: the entire human race has been drained of every emotion except one– fear. To bring life back to the world, Rom must embark on a journey that will end either in his own demise or a reawkening of humanity.  But to bring love and passion back into existence will also threaten the powers of the world with the revolution and anarchy that had nearly destroyed them previously.

After happening upon a journal through strange circumstance,  Rom’s world is shattered. He learns that humanity long ago ceased to “live,” that it exists today in a living death of emotions. In a terrible risk, Rom exposes himself to the vial of blood folded into the old leather of the journal. His change is fearful and fraught with mind-bending emotion. A once-pious observer of the Order’s passionless statues, he is filled with uncontrollable impulses. He is filled with love.

He is undone, terrified, and alone in the desolate world.

My supply of Christian fiction has sort of run low ever since I started reading more YA books, so new books from my favorite Christian authors are always exciting and squee-worthy. One of the dream team-ups I had ever since last year when the news went out was Ted Dekker and Tosca Lee, and I have waited with anticipation over this book, Forbidden. Imagine my excitement when I saw that the book was available in Netgalley.

In the year 2005, geneticists discovered that there is a certain gene in our DNA that controlled the emotion of fear, further leading to the discovery of other genes that control other kinds of emotions. After a war that devastated the world, humanity vowed to destroy everything that led to that war, particularly the emotions that come with it — love, joy, passion, anger, hatred, sorrow. Out of all emotions, only fear was allowed to survive. And because of this, peace reigned.

480 years later, we meet Rom Sebastian, a simple, ordinary man who sings songs for the dead. On his way home from a funeral, he meets an old man who tells him of an Order called Keepers and leaves a vial of blood wrapped in a vellum with strange symbols. Citadel Guards caught up with them and to Rom’s horror, they killed the man. Soon Rom is on the run from the guards with his childhood friend Avra, confused and scared to why they were running away. When he decides to drink some of the blood in the vial he carried, long-forgotten emotion surface within him together with the fear that he has been so used to feeling: sorrow. Anger. Passion. And most of all, love.

Early into the first pages of Forbidden, I couldn’t help but compare this book with Delirium by Lauren Oliver. Both books have the same premise and almost the same environment. But where Delirium lacks, Forbidden totally makes up. The world building in this book is solid, so real, and contains the signature Dekker that I have known and loved. I found that the world building here makes the idea of a world operated by fear because of genetic means more plausible as compared to that where “love is illegal and I’d have to cut a vague area under your ear to get that love out”. This book had touches of Dekker’s Circle series, with the countries and royalties and guards and the people. The composition of the world contains both ancient and modern elements that somehow mesh together really well — from advanced alchemy to the hierarchy order of the Brahmin. This somehow gives the readers a clue that while it is set in the future, it doesn’t mean that it is actually advanced. Maybe the truth is, the world is going backwards because of the fear that the people were kept in.

Add to the world building, we have the fleshed out characters, which I think is Tosca Lee’s expertise. I liked how different and conflicted the characters were — Rom with his good heart, Avra’s loyalty, Neah’s hesitation, Triphon’s bravery. Feyn’s wisdom, Sarric’s greed, Jonathan’s innocence. These all seem like typical character traits, and I have to admit that some of the characters’ actions were predictable, but I think they were able to give life to them. People may be a bit turned off with the jubilant exaltation of emotions that some characters did in the book, but I thought it was forgivable as they’ve never experienced emotion like that before. Taking the reactions of the characters in this context, it wouldn’t seem exaggerated but just right. These characters were also involved in the right amount of action that it made me cringe and be surprised a couple of times. There was a particular part in the book that got me shaking my fist, but knowing I was in the hands of good writers, I know well enough to trust them.

Forbidden is very, very good. So what’s keeping me from giving it five stars? Well, it may be just me, but I cannot shake off the similarity of this with the Circle series. Also, this book feels just a tad like a prequel rather than the real first book. While there is action, I felt the climax and the ending was just a little anticlimactic. Perhaps I was expecting more…erm, bloodshed there? Not that there wasn’t enough bloodshed earlier, but I just thought there would be more there. However, that may be just because Dekker and Lee are preparing us for the next book in the trilogy. And the ending really did leave a lot of loose ends that I’m sure will be picked up and played with in the next book.

The Keeper by Ted Dekker and Tosca LeeIf you’re still not sure if you want to splurge on this, the authors have released a short story prequel to Forbidden, entitled The Keeper, available for free as an ebook. In this short story, a man named Talus meets two hermit monk brothers who he chooses to share the terrible secret that he has been carrying, to recruit them in helping protect the knowledge that will save humanity. This short story is a very quick read, and if you’ve read Forbidden before reading this, there’s really nothing much to surprise you here. However, I think that it gives those who have yet to read the first Book of Mortals a chance to taste Dekker’s world building and Lee’s characters. I have a feeling that reading The Keeper will make you want to know more about what this secret is and if Talus ever succeeded with his mission. Also, if you have read the Circle series (Black, Red, White, Green), you will spot a very familiar name in this short story that will probably make you say, “I knew it!” Then the story of Forbidden suddenly makes more sense.

I will finish this review with a quote from the book that pretty much sums up the message of this book:

This is the mystery of it. Life is lived on the ragged edge of the cliff. Fall off and you might die, but run from it and you are already dead!

Forbidden by Ted Dekker and Tosca Lee is now out in paperback and hardbound in all stores. In the Philippines, I saw some trade paperback copies of it in Fully Booked. Must. Get. Finished. Copy!
Rating:
Forbidden – [rating=4]
The Keeper – [rating=5]

My copy:
Forbidden – e-ARC from Netgalley
The Keeper – ebook from Amazon Kindle store

Other reviews:
The Violet Hour
Unveiled
Birth of a New Witch

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Reading Buddies: A Monster Calls (1)

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You’d think I would have had enough of A Monster Calls after I sung praises to it when I reviewed it, and then sang more praises to it after I saw the trailer. And truth be told, as beautiful as the book was, it’s really not a book that you’d want to reread immediately. Okay, I would reread it for the writing, but not really for the story, especially because I think it has that The Passion of the Christ movie ((Hold your horses! I’m not saying that this book is religious or I am comparing the story to Jesus’ and all that. I am merely using the movie as an analogy. Because I really liked that movie, but I cannot, for the life of me, ask my friends to watch it with me again because it hurts to watch it.))  effect: you only want to read it once, but it’s not the kind of book you’d read again for pleasure. Unless you’re looking for a good cry.

But that doesn’t stop me from pushing it to people, of course. And push I did, especially when I saw a copy in Fully Booked. Anyway, long story short, Aaron and I convinced Ariel to get this book (And I quote: “It’s Patrick Ness. Of course it’s auto-buy.”). Ariel caved in, and got so excited about it after ((This might be my fault, with all the “I really think you will like this!” I said to him.)) that he roped me and other friends to read the book together. And since I’ve read the book already, I was the default discussion leader.

And so here I am again, reading the book for the second time, and this time, paying more attention to the details because I had to ask some questions. This time, though, I’m more prepared — I have tissues with me all the time. :P

Anyway, so I’m hosting the first blog-based Reading Buddies discussion in the Goodreads Filipino Group. Basically, we’d read the book together, the leader would ask some questions, and we’d answer it on our blogs and discuss further in the thread. I know there’s a lot of channels with this, but think of it this way: more people can participate, even those who are not a part of the group (this means you, whoever you are who is reading this).

For A Monster Calls, we divided the book into five parts, based on how the story goes. Since there are no chapter numbers, we just used chapter titles:

Part 1 – From A Monster Calls to Grandma

Part 2 – From The Wildness of Stories to Champ

Part 3 – From Americans Don’t Get Much Holidays to No Tale

Part 4 – From I No Longer See You to 100 Years

Part 5 – From What’s the Use of You to The Truth

Each part will have about 3-4 questions which we will answer on our blogs and I will round up here. The discussion will run during the month of October. If you haven’t read the book but would like to, you can join us by writing a post on your own blog, or just leaving a comment. If you do decide to write a post about it, you can leave a link to your blog on the widget below so we can drop by and read your answers, too. :)

So! After that long introduction, I’ve got the first set of questions and my answers under the cut below. Disclaimer: Some questions were taken from Candlewick’s discussion guide for the book. Slight spoiler warning for those who haven’t read the book yet. :) Mister Linky widget is waaay below, scroll down if you want to just leave a link.

Continue Reading →

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There You’ll Find Me

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There You'll Find Me by Jenny B. JonesThere You’ll Find Me by Jenny B. Jones
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Number of pages: 320
My copy: ebook review copy from Netgalley

In a small cottage house in rural Ireland, Finley discovers she can no longer outrun the past.

When Finley travels to Ireland as a foreign exchange student, she hopes to create a new identity and get some answers from the God who took her brother away and seems to have left her high and dry.

But from the moment she boards the plane and sits by Beckett Rush, teen star of the hottest vampire flicks, nothing goes according to Finley’s plan.

When she gets too close to Beckett, a classmate goes on a mission to make sure Finley packs her bags, departs Ireland-and leaves Beckett alone.

Finley feels the pressure all around. As things start to fall apart, she begins to rely on a not-so-healthy method of taking control of her life.

Finley tries to balance it all-disasters on the set of Beckett’s new movie, the demands of school, and her growing romance with one actor who is not what he seems. Yet Finley is also not who she portrays to Beckett and her friends.

For the first time in her life, Finley must get honest with herself to get right with God.

* * *

When I was younger, I used to write stories about a group of friends who lived in Ireland. It was just a random country I picked out in the world atlas, and I thought I liked the sound of Ireland as a setting. Of course, I really knew nothing of the country then, and it wasn’t until later on that I read and watched some stuff about Ireland on TV that I realized none of what I wrote was even the least bit realistic. But my recent trip to Europe got me to meet a YFC mission volunteer from Ireland, and meeting him reminded me of those days when I’d write those stories.

That’s what made me pick up There You’ll Find Me by Jenny B. Jones from my trip readings. Here we meet Finley Sinclair, Save the Date‘s Alex Sinclair’s younger sister. After they had confirmed that Will, Finley’s other brother, had died in an terrorist attack in a mission trip, she was devastated. Her life spun out of control as she tried to cope with her loss. After a year of therapy, she proved herself stable enough to go on an exchange student program to Abbeyglen, Ireland, one of the places that Will had gone to. Finley hopes to find herself and get answers from God who had seemed distant from her ever since she lost Will. But a movie star, the school’s queen bee, a cranky and sick old lady puts a wrench on Finley’s plans. As the pressure all around her builds, Finley starts dealing with things in the only way she knows how, even if it meant harming herself in the process. Can Finley find a way to get it right with God?

I liked Jenny B. Jones’ other novel, Save the Date, a lot, so I was thrilled to find out that There You’ll Find Me was a spin-off novel to that. I always like seeing how other characters I liked from a previous novel were doing in another novel that is not a sequel. There You’ll Find Me is more YA this time around. Finley is such a strong-minded character, sometimes a bit stubborn, but we can also see that she has a big heart, especially with her friendship with her host sister, Erin and her concern for Cathleen Sweeney, the old woman she was assigned to visit for class. I liked Finley’s voice, and I could definitely feel and relate with her need to control things. I liked that she wasn’t portrayed as too depressed or too angry — just very lost. And it made me want to wrap her up in a big, big hug, and tell her that God has not forgotten her.

St. Ciaran’s Monastery — I think this was one of the places Finley and Beckett visited. Image from saintsandstones.net

And speaking of God. The spiritual aspect of this book is not preachy, and I think Jenny B. Jones excels at that. Well, compared to Save the Date, there were more mentions of God, but Finley was in a spiritual journey, so what do you expect? I liked the Finley’s power verse, too, and I admit to shedding some tears at the moment when Finley found what she was looking for. The actual Irish journey was a treat to read, too, and I wished I was actually in Ireland to see the things that Finley was seeing. I wanted to spend a night at a pub enjoying good food, music and company. I want to look at the Celtic crosses that Finley was also looking for. Ireland sounds like a beautiful, beautiful place from the way it was described, and I have already written that place in my bucket list after I was done reading this. :D

There just seemed to be a little too many issues that Finley was trying to get over with in the book: grief, control issues, school stuff, Cathleen Sweeney, a possible eating disorder. Add romance to that and I’m surprised that Finley took that long before she had a melt down. I assume that it portrays real life, but it was just kind of hard to follow and it made the resolutions a little too quickly wrapped up.

And speaking of the romance. Unfortunately, I don’t think there wasn’t anything exciting about the romance, even if it was kind of sweet. I hope I’m not being cynical. I liked Beckett and I thought he was a nice guy, but I felt that the movie star + normal girl pairing has been done a few too many times. Plus points, though, on the development of their friendship to romance, which was fun to read.

There You’ll Find Me is a good follow up from Jenny B. Jones. A little bit paler in comparison to Save the Date, but nonetheless a good one. If you’re looking for a clean contemporary novel that will tickle your romantic and traveling fancies, then I think you’ll like this one. :)

Rating: [rating=3]

Other reviews:
Nightly Reading
Book that Thing!
One Page at a Time

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