Book Review-- I Crawl Through It

I just finished reading I Crawl Through It by A.S. King for an Around the World ARC Tour.

From Goodreads:

Four teenagers are on the verge of exploding. The anxieties they face at every turn have nearly pushed them to the point of surrender: senseless high-stakes testing, the lingering damage of past trauma, the buried grief and guilt of tragic loss. They are desperate to cope, but no one is listening.

So they will lie. They will split in two. They will turn inside out. They will even build an invisible helicopter to fly themselves far away...but nothing releases the pressure. Because, as they discover, the only way to truly escape their world is to fly right into it.

The genius of acclaimed author A.S. King reaches new heights in this groundbreaking work of surrealist fiction; it will mesmerize readers with its deeply affecting exploration of how we crawl through traumatic experience-and find the way out.

Ugh.  I just went from reading one of the best books that I've read in a while to one of the worst books I've read in a while.  And from the 4 star rating on Goodreads, it looks like I'm in the minority of feeling this way.

The book made absolutely no sense.  I get that Stanzi and China have PTSD from events in their life.  But what the hell is with the invisible helicopter that some people can always see, some can only see on certain days, and some can't see at all?  And flying to the mysterious place?  

Then you have the flasher bush man.  Like its okay and no one ever called the cops on him.  Really????  And the police couldn't trace the bomb threats???  A character that turns inside out???  And  more but I just don't care enough to list them.

Oh my head just hurts with how much I disliked this book.

I gave this book a rating of 1.5/5.

I Crawl Through It will be released on September 22, 2015.

*FTC Disclosure: I was given this book for free for an honest review as part of the Around the World Tours.

Book Review- The Returners

I just finished reading The Returners by Gemma Malley.

From Goodreads:

London teenager Will Hodge is miserable. His mother is dead, his father's political leanings have

grown radical, and his friends barely talk to him. To top it off, he's having nightmares about things like concentration camps. Then Will notices he's being followed by a group of people who claim to know him from another time in history. It turns out they are Returners, reincarnated people who carry with them the memory of atrocities they have witnessed in the past. Will realizes that he, too, is a Returner. But something about his memories is different, and with dawning horror, Will suspects that he wasn't just a witness to the events, he was instrumental in making them happen. Set in the near future, with the world on the verge of a new wave of ethnic cleansing, Will must choose to confront the cruelty he's known in his past lives, or be doomed to repeat it…

Ugh.  This book was horrible for me.  I didn't really like any part of it.

  Will is such a weak character.  He gets mad a lot, but that doesn't make him strong. 

And there's so much racism in the book.  I couldn't handle it.  It's one thing to read a historical novel dealing with racism but this is supposed to be set in the near future. 

There was nothing happy or positive in the book.  The returners are there to absorb pain and suffering,  But they don't do anything about it.  They just accept it.

Add in the constant flashbacks and the dreams and thoughts and it all gets confusing.  Just not my type of book.  At all.

I gave this book a rating of 1.5/5.

This book fulfills items in the following challenges:
2013 150+ Reading Challenge: 25
2013 ARC Reading Challenge: 17
2013 Young Adult Reading Challenge: 21
2013 Embarrassment of Riches TBR Reading Challenge: 3
2013 Quick Fix Challenge: 9

*FTC Disclosure: I received this book for free from the publisher for a review.

Book Review- Across the Pond

I got Across the Pond by Storyheart last year to review and I just now got around to reading it.

From Amazon:

When almost fifteen-year-old, English born Fred Squire’s parents win a trip to Australia, Fred finds himself packed off to visit family friends in the United States. Even worse, he’s given a boring language project to complete.

But then he meets Brittany.

Fred soon finds himself struggling, not only with his growing feelings for Brit, but also with the language differences. A state confusion, that increases when he meets Brit’s flirtatious friend, Angel.

Escaping from a confrontation with Steve Harris, the neighborhood bully, Brit tells Fred her dark secret about Harris, and Fred´s world is turned upside down.

Life continues to throw Fred a curveball when he catches a ball worth thousands of dollars at a baseball game. Further angry run-ins with Harris, a crazy family BBQ, and being chased through a Boston mall all add to the thrill of Fred´s American adventure.

A final fight between Fred and Harris, leads Brit to at last reveal her painful secret to her parents.

Brit and her "Brit", know that their young love will be followed by heartache when Fred has to return back "Across the Pond" to England.

However, not before some final twists in the tale.
 
Yeah, this book just didn't do it for me.  It was way too shallow.  I don't feel that the characters, nor the story was really developed.  And the book was only 118 pages so there was plenty of room to add depth.
 
Fred and Brit fell in love way too quickly and without really knowing each other.  It was just too weird.  There needed to be more growth.  I didn't care about any of the characters or what was happening.  I don't know.  Without sounding too harsh, it just seemed too amateurish compared to other books out there.
 
I gave this book a rating of 1.5/5.
 
This book fulfilled an item in the following challenges:
2010 100+ Reading Challenge:113
2010 Young Adult Reading Challenge: 82
What's In A Name? 3 Challenge: Body of Water
ARC Reading Challenge 2010: 79

*FTC Disclosure: I was given this book for free by the author for an honest review.