Review: Hushed

By Kelley York
Available now from Entangled
Review copy

When I wrote about MADE OF STARS, I mentioned that I'd long been interested in Kelley York's first book, HUSHED.   What then pops up on Netgalley but HUSHED, with a new cover?  I seriously couldn't resist the bonkers summary.  Archer has been killing people to protect his best friend Vivian, because he once failed to protect her when they were younger.

I'll admit that I never quite warmed up to Archer.  There's a real sense of unreality to the premise, but the book was written more realistically than I expected.  Archer definitely has psychological trauma, but I never really fell into the revenge fantasy.  Maybe I'm just maturing.  It didn't help that I had very mixed feelings about the Archer and Vivian friendship.  Vivian eventually becomes outright villainous, but at the beginning she was much less manipulative than I expected.  She's a little shallow, but that's a minor character flaw comparatively.  Archer, meanwhile, is a full blown Nice Guy.  He thinks that if stays by Vivian's side (and kills enough people), then she'll realize he's been the perfect guy for her all along.

However, I liked Evan quite a bit.  Evan is the catalyst in HUSHED.  He's a new student at the local university who first meets Archer when he's alone on campus.  Their budding relationship forces Archer to look more critically at his relationship with Vivian.  It also starts him towards the realization that you can't just kill people.  Evan isn't just an instrument of the plot, however.  He has his own interests and family, and his ethical dilemmas about Archer become increasingly important as the story moves on.

I didn't love HUSHED as much as I expected, partially because it wasn't as campy as I was expecting.  It suffers a little from wanting to have its cake and eat it too, to portray Archer's crimes as real, unjustified crimes and still have him be the hero of the story.  It's pretty entertaining and there is interesting psychological and character work, but it's a little rough.  There are definable, understandable reasons for Archer and Vivian's behavior, but there was something about the story that kept me separate from them instead of buying in.  The sweet romance between Archer and Evan was a nice counterpoint to the murder and associated darkness, and it was easy to see how that would affect Archer so deeply.

In the end, I still thought HUSHED was worth reading.  It was certainly different from the other books I've been reading lately.

Dual Review: Made of Stars and Fault Line

Made of Stars
By Kelley York
Available now from Entangled Teen
Review copy

I discovered Kelley York's HUSHED sometime around March last year, I think.  I still haven't read it, but it's on my wishlist.  The summary really stuck out and has hung in my mind.  When York's new book, MADE OF STARS, popped up on Netgalley, I made with the grabby hands.  Here was a chance to give her a try!

MADE OF STARS is the story of three teenagers.  Hunter and Ashlin are half-siblings, and Chance is their childhood friend, who they hung out with during summers at their dad's.  Now, Hunter and Ashlin are living with their father again as they both take a gap year and decide what college to go to and whether college is even right for them.  When they meet back up with chance, it becomes clear that they're no longer children.  Something is wrong with their friend, who never lets them see his house and who has mysterious injuries.  There are also romantic shenanigans afoot, complicated by Hunter's long-distance girlfriend.

I liked that York dealt with coming out angst in MADE OF STARS.  It's a bit passe in YA novels nowadays, almost verboten.  But there are still a lot of teenagers dealing with accepting themselves and the fear of rejection, and it's nice to have books that deal with it.  York manages to balance it with the plot about Chance's home life so that neither one really takes over the book.  That's where we come to my misgivings.

MADE OF STARS contains a big epiphany, and there's definitely a climax.  But where's the falling action?  It just ended, right when things were getting really exciting.  And as far as I can tell, there is no sequel coming.  I want to read about the consequences, and York just left me hanging.

Which brings me to FAULT LINE.

Fault Line
By C. Desir
Available now from Simon Pulse (Simon & Schuster)
Review copy

FAULT LINE is the story of Ben, a popular jock, dealing with the fallout of something unknown that happened to his girlfriend, the confident, artistic Ani.  He didn't go with her to a party, and she ended up in the hospital with no memory of what happened, having to have a lighter removed from her body.

Kelly at Stacked made a great post about the issues raised by this book and the choice of the lighter for the cover.  I don't agree entirely with her about this book, but I think her review is very worth reading, so I wanted to point it out.

One way in which we differ is that I liked the beginning.  I think the future scene lets the reader know they're in for a wrenching read, and that the sweet, almost romantic comedy tone of Ben and Ani's courtship isn't going to last long.  Now what I disliked was the ending, which doesn't really move past the beginning.  FAULT LINE truly is Ben's story, and it's about his journey.  The ending made me realize I'd rather be reading Ani's story and see her reach some resolution.

FAULT LINE is a difficult book to read.  Debut author Christa Desir's prose is fine, and doesn't linger nastily over unpleasant details, but the few details there are hurt.  Ani's story is powerful, painful, and - worst of all - realistic.

I do agree with Kelly that the character of the rape counselor is a bit too obvious, although it was obviously easy for Desir to draw on her own experiences for that character.  And if a book hammers in that there is no right way for a woman to react to rape, but that it's certainly wrong for others to shame her, at least its being unsubtle with a decent message. 

I think that FAULT LINE deals pretty well with a very difficult subject, and hope that experience smooths out the bumpier aspects of Desir's plotting.  I know lots of people don't like issue novels, but I'm always up for an author who can take an issue and turn it into an interesting, affecting story.

MADE OF STARS is also a book that tackles difficult issues, with a little bobble at the end.  I put these two books together, because in the end I reacted to them much the same way.  I was completely absorbed until the book just ended, leaving me wondering where the rest of the pages had gotten off too.