#AmReading YA

A Breath Too Late
Rocky Callen
Age/Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary
Publisher: Henry Holt
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
Goodreads

For fans of Girl in Pieces, All the Bright Places, and Girl, Interrupted comes a haunting and breathtaking YA contemporary debut novel that packs a powerful message: hope can be found in the darkness.

Seventeen-year-old Ellie had no hope left. Yet the day after she dies by suicide, she finds herself in the midst of an out-of-body experience. She is a spectator, swaying between past and present, retracing the events that unfolded prior to her death.

But there are gaps in her memory, fractured pieces Ellie is desperate to re-assemble. There's her mother, a songbird who wanted to break free from her oppressive cage. The boy made of brushstrokes and goofy smiles who brought color into a gray world. Her brooding father, with his sad puppy eyes and clenched fists. Told in epistolary-like style, this deeply moving novel sensitively examines the beautiful and terrible moments that make up a life and the possibilities that live in even the darkest of places. Perfect for fans of the critically-acclaimed Speak, I’ll Give You the Sun, and If I Stay.

After years of abuse, Ellie has lost all hope, but finds herself lingering after dying by suicide. As she attempts to reconstruct the events leading to her death, she discovers quite a few shining pieces of hope in the rubble.

Look, this book is about a young woman, who chose death over continuing to live in an abusive and oppressive home. Yes, it's devastating at times, but it's also absolutely beautiful.

The story begins after Ellie's death, and as she watches others grieve for her, she starts to remember her past and the events leading up to her suicide. Ellie's life was full of painful moments courtesy of her abusive and controlling father. However, there were also these intermittent periods of joy, which she was unable to see, when she was alive.

Those memories were utterly beautiful, and I was grateful I got to see them, but seeing them made me grieve even more for Ellie. I knew she felt trapped in her life, and she had lost so much. Her father had stolen so much from her. He robbed her of her hardworking, stable, fun, and reliable mom. He took her best friend from her, and isolated her. And, when he stripped her of all hope, she found herself pulled into an inescapable blackhole of depression.

And, I cried. I cried for the future Ellie would never have, for the things she would never experience, and the freedom she would never enjoy. I cried for her mother, who didn't actually give up. I cried for August, who never stopped caring for her. Seeing how much these two loved Ellie made me hope she really wasn't gone, but she was.

Still, I am thankful for this beautiful book. It is not a romanticized story of suicide by any means. It's about someone's regret in not being able to see the good things hidden among the bad. This book is an important reminder to someone like me, who lives with depression, to seek those points of light in my life. To look for those pockets of hope, when I am feeling hopeless. I think it can be a good message for many people.

Chasing Lucky
Jenn Bennett
Age/Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary, Romance
Publisher: Simon Pulse
Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
Goodreads

In this coming-of-age romance perfect for fans of Jenny Han and Sarah Dessen, scandal and romance collide when an ambitious teen returns to her hometown only to have her plans interrupted after falling for the town’s “bad boy”—a.k.a. her childhood best friend.

Sometimes to find the good, you have to embrace the bad.

Budding photographer Josie Saint-Martin has spent half her life with her single mother, moving from city to city. When they return to her historical New England hometown years later to run the family bookstore, Josie knows it’s not forever. Her dreams are on the opposite coast, and she has a plan to get there.

What she doesn’t plan for is a run-in with the town bad boy, Lucky Karras. Outsider, rebel…and her former childhood best friend. Lucky makes it clear he wants nothing to do with the newly returned Josie. But everything changes after a disastrous pool party, and a poorly executed act of revenge lands Josie in some big-time trouble—with Lucky unexpectedly taking the blame.

Determined to understand why Lucky was so quick to cover for her, Josie discovers that both of them have changed, and that the good boy she once knew now has a dark sense of humor and a smile that makes her heart race. And maybe, just maybe, he’s not quite the brooding bad boy everyone thinks he is…

Josie is ready to stop living the vagabond life, and ready to start putting her plan for the future into action. One part of that plan is returning to her hometown, but therein lies the biggest challenge. It requires Josie to put up with vicious gossip about her family, and also hope, that her grandmother doesn't return home before the end of the school year, and drive her mother out of town...again. Her homecoming seems to be off to a disastrous start, until she commits a crime, and her former best friend takes the fall. Maybe she would be able to evade the Saint-Martin curse after all.

I don't think I will ever stop looking forward to a Jenn Bennett book. The story and setting might change, but she never fails to gift her readers with wonderfully flawed characters and an adorable romance.

CHASING LUCKY features a heroine, who comes from a long line of strong women, who may not be the best communicators. Her family had plenty of love, but it sometimes got lost in the secrets, half truths, and discussions they avoided having. Not only did Josie yearn for her mother to step up and be more of a parent, she also wanted to experience a "normal" family. She wanted to stay in one place, and put down roots. My heart ached for this young woman, but I also knew she could have exactly what she wanted without ever leaving Beauty.

I actually loved all the Saint-Matin women, and I appreciated the way Bennett worked in the ideas about rumors, secrets, lies, and mistakes, but what I really adored, was the relationship between Lucky and Josie.

Lucky on his own was so lovable. He was slightly wounded and very misunderstood. He was often the topic of the local rumor mill, but he never pushed back. As the story unfolded, and I learned more and more about him, my love for him grew.

I needed him and Josie to rekindle their friendship, because the bond they shared had been something special. Hearing about their past ties put a smile on my face. Their parting and growing apart was a difficult thing, for both Josie and Lucky. I was really rooting for these two to find each other again, and now that they were older, they were seeing each other as way more than friends. Some of my favorite moments in the book were the ones shared between these two. Their excursions and interactions were wonderful, and marked with the fantastic banter I have grown to expect from Bennett. She never fails to make me ship her couples, and it was a pleasure watching these two reconnect, as well as connect on a different level.

Once again, Bennett has delivered a stupendous story featuring family, friendship, and first love, which made me feel a wealth of emotions, and ultimately, left me with a huge smile on my face.

**ARCs received in exchange for honest reviews.

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