Letterbox Love #85

Letterbox Love is a way to show you all of the lovely, lovely books I’ve gotten in the post, bought and everything else over the last week. Summaries are taken from the cover, or Amazon/NetGalley/Goodreads in the case of e-books, unless otherwise stated. Hosted by Narratively Speaking.

It’s been a little while since I did a Letterbox Love and with my haul from New York as well as four weeks’ worth of NetGalley and review books, it’s a big’un so I’ve done it a little differently this week…

For review:

From Rock the Boat

Nest, Esther Ehrlich (proof)

Mindwalker, AJ Steiger (proof)

Minus Me, Ingelin Røssland (proof)

Conversion, Katherine Howe (proof)

From Little, Brown, S&S and RHCP

Joe All Alone, Joanna Nadin (paperback)

Last Night on Earth, Kevin Maher (hardback)

The Potion Diaries, Amy Alward (proof)

Truckers, Terry Pratchett (paperback)

From Egmont, Michael O’Mara and Walker

The It Girl, Katy Birchall (paperback)

Creative Therapy Colouring Book (hardback)

The Rest of Us Just Live Here, Patrick Ness (proof)

From NetGalley

Nowhere But Here, Katie McGarry (MiraINK)

The Mystery of the Clockwork Sparrow, Katherine Woodfine (Egmont)

Me Being Me is Exactly as Insane as You Being You, Todd Hasak-Lowy (S&S)

From Hot Key Books Blogger Brunch

Lorali, Laura Dockrill (signed proof)

How to Be Bad, E Lockhart, Lauren Myracle and Sarah Mlynowski (paperback)

Almost Grace, Rosie Rowell (paperback)

Sophie Someone, Hayley Long (signed proof)

Being a Girl, Hayley Long (signed paperback)

The Beloved, Allison Rattle (paperback)

The Big Lie, Julie Mayhew (signed proof)

Bought:

Exquisite Captive, Heather Demetrios (hardback)

Something Real, Heather Demetrios (hardback)

I’ll Meet You There, Heather Demetrios (hardback)

Meant To Be, Lauren Morrill (paperback)

Being Sloane Jacobs, Lauren Morrill (hardback)

The Start of Me and You, Emery Lord (hardback)

Sloppy Firsts, Megan McCafferty (paperback)

Second Helpings, Megan McCafferty (paperback)

Red Queen, Victoria Aveyard (hardback)

One Man Guy, Michael Barakiva (hardback)

Me, Earl and the Dying Girl, Jesse Andrews (paperback)

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe, Benjmin Alire Sáenz (paperback)

Hold Me Closer: The Tiny Cooper Story, David Levithan (paperback)

Reasons to Stay Alive, Matt Haig (hardback)

Completely Cassidy: Accidental Genius, Tamsyn Murray (e-book)

Low – Volume 1: The Delirium of Hope, Rick Remender and Greg Tocchini (paperback)

The Rithmatist, Brandon Sanderson (e-book)

Very Good Live, JK Rowling (hardback)

Sophie

Hold Me Closer: The Tiny Cooper Story, David Levithan

Pages: 200

Publisher: Puffin

Release Date: 17^th March 2015

Edition: UK paperback, purchased

Other Titles by this Author: Boy Meets Boy, The Realm of Possibility, Are We There Yet?, Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist (with Rachel Cohn), Wide Awake, Naomi & Eli’s No-Kiss List (with Rachel Cohn), Love is the Higher Law, Will Grayson, Will Grayson (with John Green), The Lover’s Dictionary, Dash & Lily’s Book of Dares (with Rachel Cohn), Invisibility (with Andrea Cremer), Every Day, How They Met and Other Stories, Two Boys Kissing

Especially for those of us who ordinarily feel ignored, a spotlight is a circle of magic, with the strength to draw us from the darkness of our everyday lives.

Watch out, ex-boyfriends, and get out of the way, homophobic coaches, Tiny Cooper has something to say – and he’s going to say it in song.

Filled with honesty, humour and ‘big, lively, belty’ musical numbers, Hold Me Closer is the no-holds-barred (and many-bars-held) entirety of the beloved musical first introduced in Will Grayson, Will Grayson, the award-winning bestseller by John Green and David Levithan.

Tiny Cooper is finally taking centre stage…and the world will never be the same again.

I loved Will Grayson, Will Grayson so I was incredibly excited to hear that Tiny Cooper would get to be in the spotlight and Hold Me Closer did him justice.

I will saying that I have never, ever come across a script for a musical as a spin-off YA novel before, but if anyone can do it, it’s David Levithan. ‘Hold Me Closer’ is a one-man musical, but with a cast, if you see what I mean. It’s all about Tiny but there are a lots of other people that play into his story, particularly his best friend, parents and 18 ex-boyfriends. His story is chronological, beginning from him coming singing into the world and taking us up to the current day. He explores realising he’s gay, coming out, falling in love with musical theatre and falling in an out of love. A lot. There’s a wonderful mix of brilliant songs, insightful stage directions and soliloquies that give the lovable Tiny Cooper some more room to shine. I had doubted this form but I loved it and I’d be first in line for tickets to see ‘Hold Me Closer’.

As Tiny searches for love and loses it again he hammers home the message that everybody deserves love, you just have to be brave enough to go after. He openly told stories about the ones who didn’t deserve him, the ones that wanted what he wasn’t willing to give and the ones who wanted less than Tiny had to offer and it just felt so realistic. Love is a hit and miss game and the heart doesn’t always want to right things and the heart and the mind don’t always agree. Quite frankly, I think Tiny Cooper will be an excellent motivational speaker if he ever gets bored of the stage (yeah, like that’ll ever happen!).

Hold Me Closer is a wonderful novel on its own, but I’d definitely recommend reading Will Grayson, Will Grayson first – I wish I had re-read it before I dove in!

Sophie 

My Trip to NYC

If you follow me on any social media you won’t have missed that I went to New York City a week or so back. It’s a crazy, crazy place and I have a lot of opinions, thoughts and experiences to share. Prepare for an avalanche of photos!

The Food

You have everything at your fingertips in NYC. We stayed on West 40^th Street and 8th Avenue, a mere five blocks from Times Square and every type of food I could have imagined was within a five minute walk. Alas, my sister is crazy fussy so we basically spent two weeks searching out the best burgers, hot dogs and shakes we could find. And we found some excellent ones:

Left to right: Guy's American Kitchen and Bar; Planet Hollywood;
 Whole Foods Market; The Counter 

Central Park

When you first come down the interstate from JFK you realise the significance of this being a city covering an entire island; I couldn’t possibly image how Central Park could be the green paradise that I’d read about. It seemed absurd, and it kind of is. You forgot that you’re in one of the biggest and busiest cities in the world almost instantly:

Coney Island, Brooklyn

I’d heard about the Coney Island years ago – an old school boardwalk and fun fair with a gorgeous beach and pier that people are trying to bring back to its former glory. We just about made it, being there for the first day of the season. It was windy, but we had glorious sunshine:

 

Empire State Building/Top of the Rock

The Empire State deck stands at 86 floors yp and on a clear day (which ours wasn’t completely) you can see as far as the Pacific Ocean, New Jersey and Connecticut. Top of the Rock, located in the Rockefeller Centre is a little lower, the observation deck being at 67-69 floors up, but right in the heart of midtown with fab views of Central Park and the Empire State Building:

Statue of Liberty

You can’t go to New York and not pay a visit to Lady Liberty! I was surprised by how easy the whole thing was! The Statue Cruises dock was well sign-posted (unlike anything else in NYC) through Battery Park and as we had pre-booked tickets, it took us only about 25 minutes to get on the boat! Even with airport-level security… And again to get into the statue.

The Views

We stayed in the Distrikt Hotel in the heart of midtown and our room was on the very top floor – the 32^nd – so we had incredible views that stretched out onto Hudson River on the left and the bright lights of 8^th Avenue on the right. And of course, once you’re down on Times Square it’s impossible not to grab a few pictures!

Left to right: View from hotel room; 8th Av,; Chrysler Building from 5th Av. and 41st; Times Square

I had an amazing time in New York. It was more than I ever hoped it would be and I’ll definitely be going back!

Sophie 

I'll Give You the Sun, Jandy Nelson

Pages: 429

Publisher: Walker

Release Date: 2^nd April 2015

Edition: UK paperback

Other Titles by this Author: The Sky is Everywhere

Jude and her twin Noah are close until a tragedy drives them apart. Now they are barely speaking – and both falling for boys they can’t have.

Love’s complicated.

I’ve had a serious book hangover since finishing I’ll Give You the Sun and I honestly don’t know if I’m going to be able to express my lone for it coherently, but here we go!

Now, I thought The Sky is Everywhere was a beautifully written masterpiece when I read it back in 2010 and I vowed to read everything Jandy Nelson would ever write, and after I’ll Give You the Sun I can’t even think of a declaration strong enough for it. It may have taken five years from her debut for this to get into my hands but I would have happily waited another fives. This book is really that good.

Noah and Jude are inseparable. They finish each other’s sentences, know each other inside out and get insanely jealous of the other. The novel alternates between the two siblings; Noah’s life at thirteen and Jude’s life at sixteen. They’re almost two separate stories, interweaving and merging at points, but the separate because the Noah in Jude’s narration isn’t the Noah in his own and vice versa. It makes sense because apparently that was how Nelson constructed the novel – and she wrote it in the dark!

I’ll Give You the Sun is perhaps the most breathtakingly written, passionate, poetic novel I’ve read in a seriously long time, if not ever. The power in her prose is blinding and I just wanted to bask in every single one of them. Couple this with the fact that they’re often discussing art, making art, thinking about art and you get beauty to the n^th degree. It’s intoxicating. Their thoughts are often jumbled, chaotic, of-the-moment and it intensified everything.

Now stop reading my rambles and go buy this book right now, I mean it. And get the UK paperback – yellow sprayed edges and inside illustrations; the outside is as gorgeous as the inside.

Thanks to Walker for the review copy.

Sophie 

Blog Tour: The Colour of Magic, Terry Pratchett

Pages: 289

Publisher: Corgi

Release Date: 3^rd October 2008

Edition: UK paperback, movie bind-up edition

On a world supported on the back of a giant turtle (sex unknown), a gleeful, explosive, wickedly eccentric expedition sets out. There’s an avaricious but inept wizard, a naïve tourist whose luggage moves on hundreds of dear little legs, dragons who only exist if you believe in them, and of course THE EDGE of the planet…

Leaping into the world of a beloved author for their farewell tour is always a risk, but with Terry Pratchett, I felt I was pretty safe.

Pratchett is a legend, the man as well as his books, so I really wanted to be a part of the UKYA community honouring his life and his work. Id already decided that I was finally going to read one of his novels when the lovely Viv of serendipity Reviews proffered the idea of a blog tour – I was sold! At forty books, his famous Discworld series is rather intimidating and after reading countless articles on the best picks of the series and the one you should start with, I went old school and started at the beginning.

The Colour of Magic is unlike anything I’ve ever read. It did take me twenty to thirty pages to settle into the madcap world of Rincewind, but once I did, I was rather captivated. The depth and breadth of Terry Pratchett’s imagination is mind-boggling. I couldn’t even begin to guess where Rincewind and Twoflower’s misadventures would take them next, or how they’d escape with their lives. The world building is so complex and complete but ever-expanding; you can tell that this world really is where his mind was most of the time. Extraordinary.

Even though the Disc world is completely different to our own, I did spot a couple of mutilated words and objects from reality creep in and I loved deciphering them – they were rarely obvious! The connection to the reader that this gives you is important in fantasy, I think, and is probably one of the reasons why these books are so widely loved by everybody, not just hardcore fantasy readers.

With the exception of Rincewind, Twoflower and Death I do think that the characterisation suffered a little in favour of the zany plot and spectacular world building, especially when it came to female characters. Now I know that this was originally published back in 1983 but reading it in 2015 certainly shines a light on the lack of girls and women in the book. I didn’t tally them or anything while reading but I can only actually recall two in the entire novel, and though they were pretty badass, powerful women they definitely had an aura of the manic pixie dream girl about them and they were either completely naked or barely covered for the duration of their time in the story. I can only hope that there’s more of a female presence as we move through the years and the series goes on.

I really enjoyed The Colour of Magic and I’m really glad I decided to give this world a go. I’ll definitely be diving back in to catch up with the hapless wizard and his partner in near-death experiences.

Be sure to check out the rest of the stops on the Farewell Terry Pratchett Tour (click the image to enlarge) – spread the world and celebrate one of the world’s most treasured writers.

Sophie