Girl Out of Water, Nat Luurtsema

Pages: 315

Publisher: Walker

Release Date: 2^nd June 2016

Edition: UK proof, review copy

I am Lou Brown:

Social outcast,

Precocious failure,

5’10” and still growing.

I was on the fast track to Olympic super-stardom. Now I'm training boys too cool to talk to me. In a sport I've just made up. In a fish tank.

My life has gone weird very quickly.

Girl Out of Water is hands down one of the funniest books I've read this year and it thoroughly brightened up a gloomy Saturday afternoon.

Not only is Lou brilliantly funny, but her family is also completely bonkers. Things in the Brown household are a little unconventional at the moment, but the I loved the weirdness, the awkwardness and the jumble of personalities it brought. Because I’m a child, I especially liked that the sisters are called Lou and Lav (Louise and Laverne)…

When Lou teams up with Pete, Roman and Gabe it only gets better. I was a huge fan of the friendship between these four. I love that there was platonic friendships between a boy and a girl – it happens, ya know! The banter and the teasing and the genuine affection between them all was adorable.

When Lou doesn’t make it through an Olympic swim training camp, she’s devastated. Swimming has been her life for years and her days revolved around it. She’s lost, hurt, disappointed and completely baffled at how much free time she now has. I loved that Girl Out of Water showed that you can have more than one passion, one skill or talent, and that you really can find friends in the most unlikely of places. It made my heart smile.

I’m so excited to have another funny UKYA author on the shelves and I’m so looking forward to seeing what comes next for Nat Luurtsema.

Thanks to Walker for the review copy.

Sophie 

2016: Reading Goals Check-In

Unbelievably, it’s over halfway through 2016 and it’s time to check in with my reading challenges. As ever, some of these are going brilliantly and others, well, they’re not really going at all…

Read 125 books

I am ROCKING this challenge! As of writing this (end of June), I've read 113 books. I’m now hoping to hit around 200. You can see everything I’ve read on my Goodreads.

Read 1 classic a month for the #2016ClassicsChallenge

I've surprised myself with how well I’m doing with this – it’s a lot easier than it was last year! I've read 16 classics so far and I’m in the middle of two. Here’s what I’ve read so far:

I’m so pleased with myself! I can feel reading classics getting easier and more natural and I'm only getting more and more interested in reading them.

Keep expanding my reading

I’m getting there with this one, but I'm still pushing myself further. My classics, short story collections and adult novels are climbing, but graphic novels and middle grade has fallen a little, and so has non-fiction. I did, however, read my first ever poetry collection outside of the classroom! It was Milk and Honey by Rupi Kaur and I LOVED it.

I've bought some literary non-fiction that I'm hoping will kick-start my non-fiction reading again and I’m excited about them so I’m hoping I can at least make 12 by the end of the year – I’m on 7.

Read at least 6 adult novels

My target for this challenge has already been doubled! I’ve read 13 adult novels so far. I’m finding that audiobooks are a really good way to get more adult books into my reading diet and I've started to become more aware of new releases and I've also been getting them from NetGalley. Here’s what I’ve read so far:

Read 10 books from BAME authors

I’m not doing as well as I had hoped for this challenge just yet as I've only read 4 books that fit into this classification, but I have so many on my TBR! Here are the ones I’m hoping to read this year:

And now for the real failures!

Read the YA Prize shortlist

I technically did okay with this, but that’s only because I had already read 5 of the 10 books when the shortlist was announced… I have to admit that of the other 5, only 1 appeals to me.

Read the Bailey’s Women’s Prize for Fiction shortlist

This one was an impressive failure. I’d read one on the longlist (The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet) and I bought one on the shortlist (The Improbability of Love) and I'd like to read Ruby and the winner, The Glorious Heresies, but the others don’t appeal to me. I’m happy to leave this one as well.

Finish The Princess Diaries

I haven’t even picked one up this year, but I do now have all ten and they’re quick, fun reads so I’m hopeful that I’ll manage the final eight, or at least 4.

Finish Artemis Fowl

Now this challenge is one I had completely forgotten about. Whoops! I’m not really in a big hurry to complete this anymore. As much as I enjoy this series, my reading tastes are moving and changing and I’m finally happy to go along for the ride.

How are your 2016 challenges going?

Sophie 

Most Anticipated: July to December 2016

July

  

Saga Volume 6, Brian K Vaughan and Fiona Staples (5^th, Image Comics)

Paper and Fire, Rachel Caine (5^th, Alison and Busby)

Under Rose Tainted Skies, Louise Gornall (7^th, Chicken House)

Run, Kody Keplinger (14^th, Hodder)

The Boyfriend List, E Lockhart (14^th, Hot Key Books)

Did I Mention I Miss You?, Estelle Maskame (21^st, Black and White)

All About the Hype, Paige Toon (28^th, S&S)

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child I & II, Jack Thorne and JK Rowling (31^st, Little Brown)

August

Infernal, Mark de Jager (11^th, Del Ray)

The Potion Diaries: Royal Tour, Amy Alward (11^th, S&S)

The Treasure Map of Boys, E Lockhart (11^th, Hot Key Books)

Unboxed, Non Pratt (15^th, Barrington Stoke)

Time for Jas: The Diaries of Bluebell Gadsby, Natasha Farrant (18^th, Faber)

Let Me Tell You, Shirley Jackson (25^th, Penguin Modern Classics)

September

Lydia: The Wild Girl of Pride & Prejudice, Natasha Farrant (1^st, Chicken House)

The Graces, Laure Eve (1^st, Faber)

Empire of Storms, Sarah J Maas (6^th, Bloomsbury)

A Torch Against the Night, Sabaa Tahir (8^th, Harper Voyager)

Born Scared, Kevin Brooks (8^th, Egmont)

Crooked Kingdom, Leigh Bardugo (20^th, Orion)

Strange the Dreamer, Laini Taylor (29^th, Hodder)

October

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets: lllustrated Edition, JK Rowling and Jim Kay (4^th October, Bloomsbury)

Word Nerd, Susin Nielsen (6^th, Andersen Press)

The Twelve Days of Dash & Lily, David Levithan & Rachel Cohn (6^th, Electric Monkey)

 

Haunt Me, Liz Kessler (11^th, Orion)

Gemina, Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff (13^th, Rock the Boat)

A Close and Common Orbit, Becky Chambers (20^th, Hodder)

Murder Most Unladylike 5, Robin Stevens (20^th, Corgi)

What Light, Jay Asher (20^th, Macmillan)

The Deviants, CJ Skuse (22^nd, Mira Ink)

November

Heartless, Marissa Meyer (8^th, Feiwel and Friends [US])

Tales from Shadowhunter Academy, Cassandra Clare, Sarah Rees Brennan, Robin Wasserman and Maureen Johnson (15^th, Walker)

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them: The Original Screenplay, JK Rowling (19^th, Little, Brown)

December

The Fate of the Tearling, Erika Johansen (1^st, Bantam Press)

What are your most anticipated reads of the second half of 2016?

Sophie 

What's a Girl Gotta Do?, Holly Bourne

Pages: 421

Publisher: Usborne

Release Date: 1^st August 2016

Edition: UK proof, review copy

Other Titles by this Author: Soulmates, The Manifesto on How to Be Interesting, Am I Normal Yet?, How Hard Can Love Be?

Lottie is starting a supersonic feminist experiment. For one month she’s going to call out every instance of sexism she sees. But when her project hits the headlines, the trolls come out to play – and they are VICIOUS. Lottie’s not a quitter, but best friends Evie and Amber are worried. What if Lottie’s heading for burnout…or worse?

Holly Bourne continues to storm the UKYA world with What’s a Girl Gotta Do?.

The final book in the Spinster Club trilogy is a tour de force of feminism. It feels fiercer and more angry than the previous two books in the trilogy from the very first page. What’s a Girl Gotta Do? tackles sexual harassment and overt sexism without forgiveness and it made me want to pump my fist in solidarity with Lottie. But it also made me angry too. There’s sexism everywhere in our world and there were things that Lottie rallied against that are so sexist, but so normal that I've never questioned them before. It was shocking.

Lottie goes on a huge journey throughout this novel, perhaps the most of the three girls. The attention that her plight gained her weighed heavier and heavier on her until it just became too much. The relentlessness of the attacks on her was upsetting and horrifying, and yet not at all surprising. What was (sort of) surprising was the emphasis on how her project could damage her prospects at Cambridge and the traditions of a male-led world of Oxbridge. What’s a Girl Gotta Do? is definitely the most powerful of the trilogy, though my favourite is still How Hard Can Love Be? as I was a little peeved about the cliffhanger ending and having to wait for the novella in October to find out what happened with Lottie.

I laughed, I wanted to scream, and I wanted to cry in frustration and anger at the things that Lottie faces and the girls encounter and discuss. This really is a feminist trailblazing series.

Thanks to Usborne for the review copy.

Sophie 

Summer Days, Summer Nights, edited by Stephanie Perkins

Pages: 384

Publisher: St Martin’s Griffin

Release Date: 17^th June 2016

Edition: US e-proof, NetGalley review copy

Other Titles by this Author: Anna and the French Kiss, Lola and the Boy Next Door, Isla and the Happily Ever After, My True Love Gave to Me

Maybe it’s the long, lazy days, or maybe it’s the heat making everyone a bit crazy. Whatever the reason, summer is the perfect time for love to bloom.

Summer Days and Summer Nights: Twelve Love Stories, written by twelve bestselling young adult writers and edited by the international bestselling Stephanie Perkins, will have you dreaming of sunset strolls by the lake. So set out your beach chair and grab your sunglasses. You have twelve reasons this summer to soak up the sun and fall in love.

My True Love Gave to Me was one of my favourite books on 2014 so I was beyond excited when I found out that Stephanie Perkins would be curating another short story collection, this time about summer love. Sadly, I was a bit disappointed.

I loved pretty much every story in My True Love Gave to Me, but in this collection I loved 4, liked a few more and felt ambivalent or even didn’t finish the rest. There was definitely a bit of everything in here: love in all its stages; families and people from all walks of life; fantasy, magical realism, straight-up contemporary – and I think that’s what made it a bit hit and miss for me. With the exception of one story, it was three contemporary stories that I fell in love with. Here’s a bit more about them:

‘The End of Love’ by Nina LaCour

Oh my goodness, this story. Only the second story in the collection, but my favourite. Nina’s writing is utter perfection. It’s poetic, lyrical and so beautiful and I find it ridiculous that none of her solo novels have been published in the UK yet. I mean, come on?!

‘Sick Pleasure’ by Francesca Lia Block

This is a hazy, dusty, lust-filled summer of music and rebellion and I was completely captivated. I'd never read Francesca Lia Block’s writing before, but I definitely fell under her spell. I wanted to be in this story and the atmosphere was so entrancing – the warm, tingling summers that all YA readers hope they’ll have one day.

‘In Ninety Minutes, Turn North’ by Stephanie Perkins

This story is a sequel to the one she wrote in My True Love Gave to Me and it was so nice to be back with those characters. As I've come to expect and love from Stephanie Perkins, this story was sweet and swoony and utterly charming. I loved it! It made me want to re-read all of her novels over again.

‘Brand New Attraction’ by Cassandra Clare

This is the only paranormal/fantasy story in the collection that I enjoyed in the collection. I never don’t love Cassandra Clare’s story, worlds and characters so I wasn’t surprised that I enjoyed this story of a demon-run, dark circus so much. I loved the family politics, the deception and the magic -  I would happily read a whole novel set in this super cool circus.

Thanks to NetGalley and St Martin’s Press for the review copy.

Sophie