Mini-Reviews: Milk and Honey, Especially Amelia & Undying

Milk and Honey, Rupi Kaur

204|Andrews McMeel Publishing|2014

Rupi Kaur’s debut poetry collection is made up of four chapters, each dealing with pain, heartache, love and healing.

This is actually the first collection of poetry I've ever picked up of my own volition and I’m so glad I did. Milk and Honey is so powerful that I felt punched in the heart after only 20/30 pages and it just kept on coming. The short poems talk about abuse, sex, break-ups and love. It's a feminist rally cry. Kaur discusses the power and beauty of women’s natural bodies and the importance of having our own control over them. Milk and Honey is a beautiful collections and I blew me away. I can’t wait for Rupi Kaur to release more for her words into the world.

The Strawberry Sisters: Especially Amelia, Candy Harper

250|Simon & Schuster|2016

Little Lucy has a scheme to get popular, but if you want to keep all your hair, you’d better not ask what it is. Chloe’s facing the fight of her life and this time she can’t win it with her fists. Ella would just like everyone to stop shouting so she can do her homework.
Then there’s Amelia. The moody big sister. Except Amelia’s decided to ditch the sulks and the sarcastic remarks. But that’s not so easy when your best friend is keeping secrets, your mum won’t even let you babysit and you’re terrified to do a solo in the school concert.

I fell in love with these girls in the first book is this series and I continued to fall for them in this one! I love the dynamic between Amelia, Ella, Chloe and Lucy – they fight and clash and argue, but they have genuine affection towards each other. Plus, all four girls are really distinct from each other. There’s a huge focus on friendship in Especially Amelia as well as an introduction to feminism for younger readers which I really loved. I can only hope there’ll be more from the Strawberry girls!

Undying: A Love Story, Michel Faber

122|Canongate|2016

How can you say goodbye to the love of your life?

In Undying Michel Faber honours the memory of his wife, who died after a six-year battle with cancer. Bright, tragic, candid and true, these poems are an exceptional chronicle of what it means to find the love of your life. And what it is like to have to say goodbye.

I knew when I went into Undying that it was going to be tough. Watching someone you love suffering from cancer is brutal – and reading about it, even after a few years distance, is still gutting. Faber is honest about the brutal cruelty of cancer and dying. Undying is an agonising portrait of love, grief, illness and carrying on living afterwards. I’m glad I read it, but it was a tough one to get through at times.

Sophie 

Unboxed, Non Pratt

Pages: 140

Publisher: Barrington Stoke

Release Date: 15^th August 2016

Edition: UK paperback, purchased

Other Titles by this Author: Trouble, Remix

Alix, Ben, Zara and Dean meet at their old school to keep a longstanding promise to open a memory box they left there when they were thirteen. But there is a gaping hole – their friend Millie has died. When they open the box, secrets tumble out and old feelings rise to the surface.

A new book rom Non Pratt is always something to be celebrated so I was super excited to grab an early copy of Unboxed at YALC this year. And I obviously loved it!

When Alix, Zara, Ben and Dean meet to open an old memory box they hid when they were thirteen, they start to discover a whole lot more about themselves and each other than they had anticipated. I loved the clash of old and new dynamics between them, the secrets that came out and the way they came back together, even after years of silence, to a friendship that they'd never really left behind. Friendship, especially mixed friendship groups, being the focus of a story is one of my very favourite things to read about.

Aside from the story, I love the physical book itself. It’s 100% beautiful and I think the way that Barrington Stoke have tailored Unboxed to make it easier for dyslexic readers to enjoy is brilliant – thick, coloured paper; off-black print in a particular front; and a cover design that’s impossible to walk past. This is a book that could get so many people hooked on reading.

Unboxed is another beautiful book about friendship, identity and growing up from Non. It’s completely gorgeous and totally made me cry.

Sophie  

Songs About a Girl, Chris Russell

Pages: 352

Publisher: Hodder

Release Date: 28^th July 2016

Edition: UK proof, review copy

When aspiring photographer Charlie Bloom receives the invitation of her dreams – to take backstage photos for chart-topping boyband Fire&Lights – it’s an offer she can't refuse.

Overnight she is launched into a world of fame, paparazzi and backstage bickering – caught between the dark charms of the band’s lead singer Gabriel West, and boy-next-door bandmate Olly Samson.

But then Charlie stumbles upon a spine-tingling truth: all the songs Gabriel has written for Fire&Lights debut album are, impossibly, linked to her and her past.

What does he want with Charlie?

What's really going on?

Oh man, did I love this book! The recommendations of the UKYA community never fail me.

Songs About a Girl is FUN. But it’s also more than that. Charlie is a fab heroine – I love that she’s not a fan of Fire and Lights, that she’s super chill and quiet and shy. I just want to be her friend, really. Watching her grow across the novel was a pleasure. I love that she made mistakes, got into trouble, made snap judgments and mostly, that she wasn’t afraid to say when she was wrong.

I kinda went in to Songs About a Girl not thinking I was going to be that fond of the boys in Fire & Lights as I’m not a Directioner, I don’t like 5SOS or anything other young, male pop bands, but I totally fell in love with them. Yuki, Aiden and Olly are adorable and Gabe is mysterious and smouldering – though it took me a while to really warm to him. I think my favourite is actually Yuki…

Seeing how being in the band had changed the lives of the guys was fascinating. Their newfound fame meant that everything about their life was restricted, planned, controlled and nothing was off limits to the media. I felt so bad for them, but it was definitely interesting to read about! The tension between Olly and Gabriel is chafing and palpable under the pressure of their situation – glorious! What I wasn’t expecting was the fallout of Charlie spending time with the band. The trolls, the vitriol, the downright abuse. It was scary and really demonstrated cyber bullying and the dark side of social media. I think it’s an important side of these platforms to show.

Songs About a Girl ended on a cruel cliffhanger and I’m dying to hear more from Charlie and the boys from Fire and Lights – thank goodness there’s going to be another book! Chris Russell’s debut is one of the books that I've had the most fun reading so far this year.

Thanks to Hodder for the review copy.

Sophie 

On Reading Shakespeare's Sonnets

When I was offered the new Vintage Classics edition of Shakespeare’s ‘Sonnets’ for review, my first reaction was ‘Thanks, but no thanks’ – who was I to read Shakespeare’s sonnets?

Stupid, I know.

Then I realised that I genuinely had no memory of reading any of these famous poems, and I did an English Literature degree, so I figured it wasn’t too late to change that and gleefully accepted the beautiful new edition.

Look at these two gorgeous new @vintagebooksuk Children's Classics! I only read a few of Shakespeare's sonnets at school so I'm really excited to read them for myself. And it's really beyond time I read The Handmaid's Tale...

A photo posted by Sophie (@solittletimeforbooks) on Jul 21, 2016 at 2:41am PDT

In picking up the book and sitting down to start it, I was kind of terrified, intimidated, worried. But, why?

The language is tough and there aren’t any notes.

I don’t have a teacher or lecturer on hand to decode them.

I won’t understand them.

What's the point if I don’t understand them?

After reading only a few sonnets I realised that no, I don’t really understand them, but that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t read them.

Just because I don’t understand every word doesn’t mean I can't appreciate the feelings, the phrases and the lyricism. Even the strange words, odd ideas and the fact that I’m reading Shakespeare without being made to is part of the experience!

I’m still new to poetry and maybe reading these ‘Sonnets’ is throwing myself in at the deep end, but I think my lovely friend Caro put it perfectly: “If you have feelings, you’re a poetry reader!” Can’t say fairer than that really!

How do you feel about Shakespeare? Are you a poetry pro?

Sophie 

All About the Hype, Paige Toon

Pages: 320

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Release Date: 4^th August 2016

Edition: UK paperback, review copy

Other Titles by this Author: Lucy in the Sky, Johnny be Good, Chasing Daisy, Pictures of Lily, Baby Be Mine, One Perfect Summer, The Longest Holiday, The Accidental Life of Jessie Jefferson, I Knew You Were Trouble, Thirteen Weddings, The Sun in Her Eyes, The One We Fell in Love With 

A lot can change in a year.

As the daughter of a global superstar and the leader singer in one of the coolest bands in LA, Jessie Jefferson’s life is preeeetty interesting. Especially now she’s seeing her gorgeous, guitar-playing bandmate in secret…

But it’s not all gigs and glamour. Even in a high school full of celebrities, Jessie is finding the rock star lifestyle isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

Is Jessie finally ready to be a Jefferson? Or is the spotlight proving too much for this wild child?

SPOILER WARNING: There may be spoilers for the first two books in the trilogy.

I’ve been a huge fan of Paige Toon’s books since her debut and the Jessie Jefferson series has taken me back to my favourite of her characters. I loved All About the Hype, but I was so sad to see this series end.

We’re back in LA as Jessie moves to the States to live with Johnny, Meg and the boys. It’s a sad time for Jessie and a confusing one. I was a little niggled at first as it seemed that she was once again swerving between sexy, band boy Jack and sweet, ex-boyfriend Tom but I quickly got over it and got sucked back into Jessie’s newly glamourous world.

I loved how the effect of her newly luxurious life, famous dad and friends and newfound personal fame was explored. Her reactions felt authentic and genuine and I was championing her even through her mistakes. Because she made mistakes – she’s only 16 after all! It was so refreshing to see that and to have her acknowledge them herself.

An old face from Johnny Be Good and Baby Be Mine made an appearance in this book and it really stressed me out! Even remembered the goings on from Johnny’s books was enough to make me shout at my book to get Jessie to walk away. The stress! But I kind of loved that connection back to the original stories as no one could have that strong of a reaction if you hadn’t read them. It made me desperate for a re-read! In fact, that pretty much happened every time Johnny popped up…

It was bittersweet saying goodbye to these characters (again) and I’m hoping that there’ll continue to be more from the Jeffersons – I could read about them forever. I got into that lovely emosh tears/warm fuzzies state as I read the epilogue.

Thanks to S&S for the review copy!

Sophie