UnWholly: Review

Thanks to Connor, Lev, and Risa—and their high-profile revolt at Happy Jack Harvest Camp—people can no longer turn a blind eye to unwinding. Ridding society of troublesome teens while simltaneously providing much-needed tissues for transplant might be convenient, but its morality has finally been brought into question. However, unwinding has become big business, and there are powerful political and corporate interests that want to see it not only continue, but also expand to the unwinding of prisoners and the impoverished.

Getting this out of the way first: Neal Shusterman, I swear, if you make me wait five years for the next book, I might die. Like, actually die.

My expectations were high, high, high for this one, considering how spectacular the first one was. Well, this did not disappoint in the least. Hot. Damn.

 

Damn it. DAMN IT. Neal Shusterman is an absolute master at two things: introducing a bunch of new characters, more than you'd think you'd be able to handle and it makes you want to groan and just think oh my gosh get to the main characters I want to hear about already, and then suddenly making you feel so strongly for them it hurts (whether it's love or broiling hatred), and crafting plot twists that are so sneaky so diabolical they make you gasp out loud. How does he juggle so many different perspectives (one of the perspectives is from the planes, for crying out loud!) and makes it work? Astounding. Just astounding. One of my favorite qualities from Unwind was the come-out-of-nowhere, impossible-to-guess plot twists, and this book did not lack in those in the slightest.

The characters. The ones we love from the first book--Connor, Risa, Lev, Hayden the new ones introduced in this one--Cam, Miracolina, Trace, Starkey, Nelson. I honestly didn't think I could love the main three from the first book more, but their character development was fantastic and my love for them grew tenfold with every hardship they faced. My heart broke for Lev so much--two particular scenes (one involving his family, and another after the amazing "HE'S PEEING IN SOMEONE'S SUITCASE!" scene) made my eyes mist and I was this close to bawling. I adored his bond with Miracolina. I adored Miracolina in general. Her transformation was great. Cam, oh, Cam, you just want to hold him and pet him and tell him that everything's okay. At the end though man... I can't wait to see what he has in store for the next book. Starkey... I can't talk about him without seeing red. All I can say is that I have never felt such hatred towards a character before, and considering other books I've read with actual official villains admittedly a lot worse than him, that's saying something! I sent Caitlin three text messages within ten minutes of each other that express my feelings about this character quite well. In verbatim:

WOW I HATE STARKEY SO MUCH WHAT AN ASSHOLE
YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND I HATE HIM SO FUCKING MUCH
I WANT TO RIP THIS KID'S THROAT OUT WITH MY TEETH

and so on and so forth. If you know me, it takes a lot to make me swear, especially with such violence. Could you actually believe that I sympathized with this kid once? That I actually kinda even liked him? Well, Shusterman has this way of just forcing you to get to know these characters, learn their histories, how their brains work, you suddenly find yourself more emotionally invested in them than you ever signed up for, and it's pretty bloody painful. 

Never a dull moment for the plot. It's constantly in motion--there's never any dawdling, something is happening, whether it's happening to Connor, to Cam, to Lev, to Miracoline, to Lev and Miracolina, to Nelson (GYAHHHH THIS GUY), etc, the action never quits. It's fast, gloriously fast, and every scene keeps you on the edge of your seat and you don't want to stop reading until you have nothing left. I especially loved the advertisements and the public service announcements that plagued the beginning of the book, as well as the pseudo-articles at the beginning of each part. It gives it such a realistic, authentic feel. 

 The references to the first book--so many references to tiny characters you barely gave a thought who only appeared on one or two pages--made me regret not giving Unwind a reread before this one. This is plotted out extremely well and sometimes it was just so brilliant that I had to set the book down and writhe in my sheets for a few minutes before I could continue, all the while muttering, "Damn you, Neal Shusterman, you sneaky bastard." 

Five out of five stars, and a proper place among my All-Time Favorites next to its predecessor. Made me laugh. Almost made me cry. Made my emotions rip themselves from every crevice in my body and whirlwind around me. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Aaaaand one more Damn you, Shusterman and your brilliance!, to properly end this review. I knew I bought a signed copy of Unwind even though I already owned it for a reason!

It's here. The day is finally here.

I'm doing everything not to ditch my plans for today to read this sucker.

Trying oh so hard.

The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer Review

Mara Dyer doesn’t think life can get any stranger than waking up in a hospital with no memory of how she got there.
It can.
She believes there must be more to the accident she can’t remember that killed her friends and left her mysteriously unharmed.
There is.
She doesn’t believe that after everything she’s been through, she can fall in love.
She’s wrong.

If there was a checklist, a formula for your generic, hit YA novel, then The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer would have nine out of ten--hell, possibly ten out of ten checked. It's that cliched--that predictable. In fact, at moments I fell over laughing at how easily it fell into the tropes. Misunderstood girl. Girl bullies. Hot, smokin' bad love interest who ends up being the most perfect person that could walk the earth. The I love you, but this is wrong, romance. That sudden "spark." Yea. It's all here to the max. You'd think it would at least hold a plot worth pursuing, right? Well that too is a disappointment, but let's not get into that just yet.

Let's be honest. This should be a single star in my book. Not because it's bad. In fact, it had some aspects I quite enjoyed (yet then it's a doubled edged blade). It deserves a low rating for the tag along gestures. The plot is a complete tease. The entire time I found myself wondering, wanting more. Come on Mara! What happened! I want more! More memories! And when we finally get over that hill, finally seeing something worth seeing, it falls flat.

That's it?

And just when I was about to let out a disheartened sigh, Hodkin literally throws a wrench on the last page, opening doors that you wished could have been rammed in sooner. Really, Hodkin? Are you really going to play dirty?

Well, damn you then. I'll play.

The characters felt the exact same. Here we have is Noah who is immediately labeled as the Hot Guy Who Uses Girls like Condemns. I'm not kidding. That line, or something similar is used to describe him and his "womanizing ways." Here's the thing. I liked Noah. What I didn't like was how he was executed. We're lead to believe him as something and suddenly the facade is thrown away, one right after another. He's more of a Billionaire Playboy Philanthropist but without the super hero status. Seriously, he ends up being perfect in every way. Yea, I enjoyed his flirtatious ways, and oh so charming words, but God.

I mean really, Hodkin? He punched two guys for mouthing off to Mara, and threatened another man. A middle aged priest, by the way. Are you getting my struggles here? Noah is good guy, but a unrealistic guy. He's more fiction then real and hard to ignore. And it sucks.

The romance and the continuous tropes has no redeeming qualities--okay maybe the romance did. Hodkin knows how to write heavy with the steam, but besides that meh. The insta-love, the bullies that continued to make Mara a victim, the extra unique best friend (the fact that we meet him with a shirt that says "I am cliche" on the front says everything)--everything fell into into typical YA genre jazz. If you can't predict this shit, then you have not read enough YA.

But here's the thing, if the prose had been ugly, choppy and just plain bad, then yes, I would have bored myself to tears reading this shit, but the prose in fact was the opposite: smooth, flowing and ninety nine percent of the time, delicious. Mara's voice (not character) is strong, fresh and witty. I found myself laughing at her inner comments. Her snark brought color to the pages and I appreciated it. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have been able to get through the pages without the prose.

Occasionally, I did grow tired of the "I could just die" exaggerations. When it comes to Noah, Mara could just die over. And over. And over. Someone hand me a gag bag, thanks.

In the end, it's a possibility I'll be back for book two. The mystery behind Mara is just dangling in my face, and like a damn cat I can't take my eyes off it. Pouncing at it is simply too embarrassing, but I just might.

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