ARC Mini Reviews: Contemporary Fiction

Thank you to the publishers Walker Books and Alma Books who have been kind enough to provide me with wonderful review copies lately. I enjoyed each and every one of these!

 

BLURB: How far is too far when it comes to the people you love? 
Claire Casey hates being the centre of attention. But if it means getting Sef Malik to notice her, it’s a risk she’s happy to take.
Sef is prepared to do anything to help his recently disabled brother. But this means putting Claire’s love – and life – on the line. Because when you’re willing to risk everything, what is there left to lose?

Non Pratt’s latest novel Truth or Dare is right on trend. It’s sharp and current with its portrayal of social media, and it ticks a lot of diversity boxes including LGBT, Neurodisability and subtle nudges and observations of passive racism. (Not that these things should be seen as tick boxes because I am looking forward to the day where we don’t have to point them out like a rarity!)

Book Fangirling Blog Award

I don’t normally post about blog awards these days, mostly because I get quite a lot of them and I feel like the posts can get repetitive and aren’t that fun for people to read, but Read by Umbreen nominated me for this one, and how could I resist it with a title like ‘the book fangirling award’ AND when it has a picture of a Harry Potter jumper? 😉 This one is exactly my cup of tea, so thank you, Umbreen for thinking of me!

The Rules:

• Create a post to accept your award.
• Add the blog award button into your post and put it on the side of your blog as a widget. Visit fangirling for the award button.
• Answer the questions I have below.
• Nominate between 5-10 book bloggers who you think also deserve this award.
• Come up with your own 5 questions for your nominees.

So here are Umbreen’s questions:

Attending my first bookish event: YALC 2015!

A couple of weekends ago I found myself waking up at 6am, and dragging my zombie like body to the train station in the name of books.

YALC is the UK’s first ever young adult literature convention. It was set up last year and attached to London Film and Comic Con as it was felt books should be seen alongside other popular media. I had never been to a convention before, but I have to say it is one of the most amazing experiences I have ever had. There was so much positivity and enthusiasm in one place and a real sense of community, and I kind of felt like I wanted to grab a sleeping bag, set up camp and stay there forever!

Remix by Non Pratt Review 4/5

Overall Impression: A smart and funny emotionally charged book about friendship, forgiveness and the power of music.

After reading Non Pratt’s fantastic debut novel Trouble last year, I was absolutely itching to get my hands on her latest book Remix, a story based around two best friends attending a music festival. As I expected, it did not disappoint. No one does real contemporary like Non Pratt does!
There are three things I think YA novels are often missing, one, realistic teen characters that constantly mess up, two, relationships that aren’t perfect, and three, real representations of friendships that aren’t purely a plot device. Remix is a novel that has all three of these, and, therefore, it has epic proportions of awesome!
I would like to thank the lovely people at Walker Books for giving my a free ARC of Remix in exchange for an honest review.

From the author of Trouble comes a novel about boys, bands and best mates.
Kaz is still reeling from being dumped by the love of her life… Ruby is bored of hearing about it. Time to change the record.
Three days. Two best mates. One music festival.
Zero chance of everything working out.

Kaz and Ruby have just finished their GCSEs and are nursing painful breakups, looking forward to a summer of freedom before real life kicks in and everything changes.

Trouble by Non Pratt Review 5/5

Overall Impression: Smart, hilarious and packed to the brim with emotion. I’m wrapped up in a feels blanket and I don’t ever want to come out!!! (Please don’t make me.)

From the first moment I saw this novel, everything about it seemed to call to me; the bright blue pastel cover, the teen pregnancy subject matter and the mysterious blurb with its tantalising hook. As it turned out, Trouble not only met my expectations but succeeded them more than I could have ever predicted. It’s given me the worst book hangover since The Hunger Games, I couldn’t pick up another book for weeks! I’m a bit scared to review it if I’m honest and I’ve kind of been avoiding it because I don’t know how I can do it justice! I’ve written and rewritten this review endlessly because I have too many feelings and I want it to be right. It still isn’t right, but here goes nothing!

Hannah is smart and funny.
She’s also fifteen and pregnant.
Aaron is the new boy at school.
He doesn’t want to attract attention.
So why does Aaron offer to be the pretend dad to Hannah’s unborn baby?

Trouble is a dual perspective book that switches between the point of view of Hannah, a girl more interested in partying and the opposite sex than focusing on her GCSEs, and Aaron, the quiet new boy in school who just wants to keep his head down and pass by unnoticed. Coincidentally, I’ve been reading a lot of multiple perspective books lately but none have been as smart, snappy or compelling as Trouble.