March Wrap-Up

I have finally truly learned my lesson to not pile on too many books. I usually can only get four books read in one month not seven like I assigned myself. I have since then created a reading schedule to keep me on track throughout the month. This month I read six books though some were through my English class and some were very short. I will now give a brief synopsis of each book and give you my thoughts on each one.

Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes by Chris Chrutcher was the first book I read this month. As I mentioned in my March TBR post I read this for school. My teacher recommended it to my class and I would get class credit for reading it so I gave it a shot. Unfortunately, it was a mediocre novel. Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes tells the story of Eric Calhoune, a fat high schooler, who becomes best friends with Sarah Byrnes, a girl with terrible burn scars all over her face. The two get into all kinds of shenanigans like creating a newspaper that slanders kids in their school and becoming friends with a huge doofus who repeated the 8th grade many times. The problem with this book was the many, many, MANY subplots. Some were interesting like Eric's English teacher teaching a class where they discuss controversial topics such as abortion and religion or a barely mentioned plot point where Eric joins the swim team and fears he will become skinny so he stays fat for Sarah Byrnes. Yes, the name of the title is a dismissed plot point that is rarely mentioned. Instead they focus on...well focus isn't the right term for a novel with such a lack of focus. Seriously, there are subplots about Eric's friend's car which he painted with religious symbols, a jerk in the English class who bickers with Eric and even Eric's mom's boyfriend has his own subplot. This book could have been great if it had one plot and focused on a few interesting subplots, possibly the one they built up to in the title. Maybe if you love contemporary and the lives of really unrealistic teens interests you give this a read.  

Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse was a book I read with my English class. This book is about the Great Depression following the life of 13 year-old Billie Jo. She lives on a farm in the Panhandle of Oklahoma during the Dust Bowl as her family's crops suffer. This book is written in verse, short poems on every page. This was a boring, depressing book but it was inoffensive. I wouldn't recommend it but it was decent.

This was another assigned read. This is not the book that Anne Frank wrote but the play adaption written by Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett. It wasn't very exciting but it was enjoyable to read in class with my peers, everyone reading a different part aloud. It is not something you would want to read for leisure but it was an enjoyable classroom activity

Peanut is a graphic novel written by Ayun Halliday and illustrated by Paul Hoppe. It follows the story of Sadie, the new girl in town who desperately wants to be popular at her new school so she pretends to have a deathly peanut allergy to get attention. Everyone falls for it and soon enough she makes a lot of friends and has to constantly be vigilant in order to keep her secret. This book was decent. It told a cute story with cute illustrations but at the same time the story was very predictable. The main character was bland and forgettable. All I remember about her was her pink shirt that she always wore to contrast with the black and white drawings. I even had to look up her name for this post. If you want a fast read or a cute contemporary pick this one up but it's nothing special. 

I, and probably most of the world, have hyped Divergent to the extreme so I won't go into detail. I even made a separate review of this book comparing it to the newly released movie where I explain my thoughts about this novel. In short, I loved it and I highly recommend it for fans of The Hunger Games.

Free Four is a short story (by short I mean a 10 page long ebook) taking a chapter of Divergent and putting it the other main character, Four's, point of view. I enjoyed it but I recommend it only if you are a huge Divergent fan you may enjoy it for a bit more information but there's not much to work off of for review.

The Impossible Knife of Memory on the other hand is a very special, important story. Hayley Kincain is a 17 year-old girl who is attending her senior year of high school in a new town, Sounds like your run-of-the-mill young adult contemporary novel until you thrown in one more element: her father is a war veteran suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. This leads to a whole slew of problems for Hayley to deal with including her father's drug addiction and alcoholism, debt, quick temper and depression. Along the way Hayley finds friends along the way including Gracie, a childhood friend suffering from her own set of problems and Finn, a cute boy Hayley begins to fall for as he falls for her. I  can't say I "loved" this book but I definitely have a deep appreciation for it. It is an important story that needs to be told. If you are interested in mental illness, PTSD, are suffering from those problems yourself or want to know about the life of a troubled teen I encourage you to pick this up.


That is the end of my March Wrap-Up. Stay tuned for my April TBR coming up soon!