"Perfect" by Ellen Hopkins

**Spoilers!**

Perfect, by Ellen Hopkins, is the story of four high school students struggling with colleges, love, their futures, and what perfect really means.

This was the first book to get me to cry. Ever. I'm so serious. As an ode to how important this fact is, I read The Five People You Meet in Heaven, and The Faults in Our Stars, both of which I like to think of as a downright sad books, and did not cry during those. 

This book was amazing. When I first read the blurb, I thought it was going to be cheesy. But it was so intense and saddening and an amazing mix of poetry and narrative. The stories were so believable it hurt. You could feel all the raw emotion. Hopkins does some of the most amazing things I've ever seen with literature. I loved Crank, probably one of Hopkin's most famous books, but I think this book should be just up there with it.

The ending is what really did me in. It's so impossibly unhappy, but so terribly hopeful. Andre is ready to face his family, but Jenna is raped. Sean's life is permanently messed up and he's borderline crazy thanks to obsession and steroids, Conner dies, but Cara find her true self and finally finds love with Dani. 
Kendra is torn and anorexic (and seems to stay that way), but has seen inside her family and admitted her feelings fully for maybe the first time.

It's the mix of jealousy, desire, love, hate, lust, anger, violence, sadness and maliciousness that make this book such a deliciously dark read, and reel you in. The characters seem to each represent something perfect people want in their lives, each one twisting this image painfully, making you realize how fast cracks can form from perfection. Each character gives you a different approach on perfect in people's lives.

I hated Sean. He was so self-involved, and childish, and by the end of the book, I was afraid of him, and afraid of what he thought was right in his twisted, broken mind. He's so creepy and insane at the end, it's hard to imagine anyone like that. His motives started off so pure. He was so in love with Cara, you feel sorry for the guy that she didn't try to justify herself to him at all. She just broke it off, then even though he was hung up over her and one of her best friends (as she mentions in the first part of the book), she doesn't try to explain anything

Cara was near the most relaxed character. Most of the story, she was just crazy in love, and handling it, or thinking about her older brother. I thought that her realizing she was lesbian was a little too fast (like when they're skiing she just automatically says 'Maybe' she's lesbian when Danielle asks? There is no hint of that she is before that. I think it's amazing that she found what she really wanted, but it was kind of forced, especially if it was her first time with a girl. I think she would have been a little more nervous. Though I also didn't read the first book, which could have exposition to this fact in it), but her sadness at the end of the book was just so real. Her crying, "Mommy" and, "Daddy" when Conner died, even though she hated them most of the time and resented them? It was so raw.

Kendra was in so much denial. I wanted an emotional breach. It was almost hard to get attached to her. Her problem was so much more than her eating disorder. She reminded me of a mild Sean, because she only thought of Conner. She used him to justify her own madness.

Andre was also fairly mild compared to everyone else. He should be himself. I think that his relationship with Jenna really made him interesting. He adored and loved her unconditionally. But she was too childish, and too scarred by her parents to reciprocate. It's almost a relief when you see she realizes this. And when she gets raped right after Andre breaks it off with her, it's so sad. 

THE BOOK IS SAD.

But...
This book is one of my all time favorite, and always will be.

"After" by Amy Efaw

**Spoilers!**

After, by Amy Efaw, tells the story of Devon. Devon has always been the "good girl". Straight A's. Master goalie on the soccer field. Quiet and well-behaved, even with her slightly obnoxious and childish mother who goes through men just a little bit too fast. But when a new-born baby is found in a trash can behind Devon's house, left to die, and Devon is the one to blame, her life will change forever. But how could Devon herself have not known about the baby as she claims? When she was pregnant, gaining weight and throwing up? 

This was actually a really good book. I heard some bad reviews about it and wanted to see if it was as terrible as people were saying. Though really the only thing that bothered me was that Amy Efaw used too many soccer references in it. I'm kind of laughing at that now, because that's a very silly thing to think of a book. But I guess it was very soccer oriented? I did think Devon, as a character was a little useless at times, and some of her motivations were confusing me. But I know very little on the subject of the book, pregnancy and rejecting your child after birth, so I may not have the full picture.

I thought this was a really intriguing book about how far humans will go to keep their personal image. I hated Devon at the beginning. It seemed so obvious that she was pregnant, and all the things that were put up against her as evidence, mostly the details in the flashbacks, shows that she did know that it was likely she was pregnant. She even seemed to hide it from other people actively, which means that she did know! I understand that denial over traumatic events can occur, but it seemed so obvious that she knew that she was with child, and that she could have done something about it.

One of the reasons this book ended up being really satisfying for me is that at the end, Devon does realize all of the things I said above. She knows that even if she was denying it to herself, at some level she knew she was pregnant. She knew what she was subconsciously trying to do when wearing baggy clothes, or what she realized when she had cramps from sit-ups. That she knew that she had to pay and do something about almost killing her child was what really showed that Devon was still Devon. She knew she wanted the baby gone when she gave birth. She knew she was trying to make it go away by hurting the baby. If I tried to do get rid of a child in secret, I wouldn't be able to get it off my mind- that I tried to kill something as precious as a baby, but I didn't pay any consequences.

As I said before as well, I didn't like that there were so many random soccer references in the book. I get that soccer was important to Devon as a character, but would someone realistically think that everything was like soccer? I got all the little anecdotes about hard games and practicing and tough foul shots, but it kind of took me out of a story that was really about what humans can and will do and denial, and made me think it was one of those children's shorter chapter books all about some kid and his baseball team, and the conflict is all about how some other guy on another team cheat and he has to prove it or something. It just felt wrong. It was a weird tonal change in the book. I expect that from sports books, but do even professional soccer players always think in soccer metaphors, similes and analogies?

"The Faults in Our Stars" by John Green

**Spoilers!!**

I recently finished The Faults in Our Stars by John Green. This book is about Hazel Grace, a sixteen-year old cancer patient who knows she might not live until her next birthday. She meets the charismatic, attractive Augustus Waters at a cancer support group, and her life is changed forever.

I really loved this book. I loved the narration style and the characters voices, and the ending especially. It was really touching and sad, but really hopeful too.I though it was following Hazel's character that she wouldn't be blubbering over Gus for weeks. She would be sad, but strong and now that he was in terrible pain before, and he wasn't anymore. But she also knew that he would much rather be alive than dead.

I thought a symbol for life in the book was Mr. Van Houten. He was what Hazel was looking forwards to, and thought that he was the best thing that ever happened to her. She ended up seeing that he was often terrible and not fair. For example, Hazel thought he would be smart and kind and a wise, good person. Just by reading his books, she assumed this about him. In reality, he was a kind of crazy messed up old man who didn't know how to handle grief.

This is corresponding with the moment in life Hazel found out she had cancer. She, as a child, was looking forward to life and all it had, but she soon realized that life isn't fair, and most of the time tragic.  Following Hazel's attitude towards cancer, she doesn't give up on or to Mr. Van Houten, she stand up to him, and just does what makes her happy. She doesn't pretend as if it doesn't hurt her that Van Houten ended up being annoying and sad, but she knows that she can't change him.

Van Houten represents the main events of Hazel's life in one three-day trip. At the end of the book, after Augustus dies, Van Houten shows that he (or life) is disappointing for reasons, and that it can always redeem itself. The near-redemption of Van Houten is representing Hazel meeting Augustus.

Again, this book is amazing. Really, just amazing, and it's just so... AMAZING. I recommend to fans of books like 13 Reasons Why and definitely any other John Green books. Also, just saying, I was right with my prediction from the last post.

"The Fox Inhertitance" by Mary E. Pearson

**Spoilers!!**

Today I finished The Fox Inheritance, by Mary E. Pearson, a sequel to The Adoration of Jenna Fox. The book is set 260 years in the future from where The Adoration of Jenna Fox was set. This was one of the factors that originally made me intrigued by the book. The new book came with a new panel of characters, and a new setting set even further in the future than the original. Sadly, I was really only disappointed by the book. I liked that the book did use new characters, and those who had experienced all of what Jenna Fox hadn't. It was almost a, "What if..." story. I did like the new setting and words and  whole new culture introduced. It made it more interesting to read the book.

The setting also was one of the down falls however. I don't really know how far in the future the original book was set, but they clearly didn't have any of the Bots, Non-pacts, cloning or the Network that they have in the first book. Pearson just kind of glides over this, and thought it's explained to Locke, you stay guessing (in a bad way) a lot of the time because of the generality of all the descriptions.

The story was really predictable. That was one of the things that I loved about The Adoration of Jenna Fox, it was new and fresh and dealt with issues in a new way. This book, while still dealing with issues like survivors guilt, teenage angst, and biotechnology, puts a lot of this stuff to the side, and when the author does bring this up, it's the same note that Locke hits over and over again. The plot was really easy to figure out. I kept guessing with Jenna Fox, and it had an air of mystery around it. With The Fox Inheritance, I pretty much knew from the beginning: Kara is now crazy, Locke is in love with Jenna, and Kara will end up killing herself. Whilst speaking of the death scene, I can't begin to tell you how painfully shallow it was. It was basically Kara saying the same things we had already figured out, and then pulling Dr. Gatsbro off a cliff. I mean, it was sad, but Locke barely reacted, and they all went on with their lives like nothing happened.

I found myself almost skipping through pages in the "epic traveling adventure" part of the book, where Locke is trying to get from Boston to California. It's just not epic, action or emotion packed enough to be added in as an "epic traveling adventure" sequence.

The characters felt so transparent to what they were in the first book. Jenna barely responded to Locke returning, and when she did, it was only one huge blast of crying then it was over. Wouldn't she have more questions? Even if she is extremely old now, and has experience with loss, she would still try to defend herself, wouldn't she?

Overall, it was an okay book, not living up to the first book however. I'll still read the second book, just so I finish off the story line. Speaking of finishing series, I have to get to reading all the "Time Quintet's" spin-offs... Arm of the Starfish, House of Lotus, Meet the Austins... etc.