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Book Review: The Things I Didn’t Say by Kylie Fornasier

Apr 24, 2016

The Thing’s I Didn’t Say by Kylie Fornasier

Pages: 320
Publish date: May 2nd 2016
Publisher: Penguin Teen Australia
ISBN: 9780143573630
Purchase: Book Depository – Amazon US – Amazon AU

I hate the label Selective Mutism – as if I choose not to speak, like a child who refuses to eat broccoli. I’ve used up every dandelion wish since I was ten wishing for the power to speak whenever I want to. I’m starting to wonder if there are enough dandelions.

After losing her best friend that night, Piper Rhodes changes schools, determined that her final year will be different. She will be different. Then she meets West: school captain, star soccer player, the boy everyone talks about. Despite her fear of losing everything all over again, Piper falls in love – and West with her – without Piper ever speaking one word to him. But will it last?

The Things I Didn’t Say:

The Things I Didn’t Say by Kylie Fornasier was one of my most anticipated books for 2016. I adored her previous book Masquerade and when I heard Kylie was writing another book, I knew that I need to read it, and let me tell you it didn’t disappoint.

The Things I Didn’t Say is quite different from her first novel. Firstly it’s not historical fiction and it’s set here in Australia. It’s a contemporary novel that includes a protagonist with Selective Mutism.

The Things I Didn’t Say follows protagonist Piper as she starts at a new school after an event that made her lose her best friend. The thing is, Piper has Selective Mutism. Selective Mutism is a condition that causes someone not able to speak in certain situations or with certain people. For Piper, the only people that she speaks to is her family and people that she is really close to.

I really enjoyed Piper as a protagonist. Her growth throughout the book was really well done and we are able to see that she has changed from the start of the book. I also enjoyed her character arc.

Kylie Fornasier dealt with Selective Mutism exceptionally well. There is quite a lot of YA novels that deal with characters not speaking – but because of something that has happened to them. Selective Mutism doesn’t work like that and we are able to see that in The Things I Didn’t Say.

We also see how other characters deal with this and it’s interesting to see how her family, who have known her, her life think that it’s just a phase that she is going through. But someone who has just found out about the condition is totally accepting.

Nevertheless, we also get to see how people who don’t know Piper’s situation deal with her especially, teachers because of her move to a new school.

There was something very real about The Things I Didn’t Say. The conversations felt real, the events that happened felt real, the way that the characters deal with things, felt real.

The romance in The Things I Didn’t Say was adorable. I enjoyed West both as a character and as a love interest for Piper. It was so cute the way that West dealt with the knowledge when he found out about Selective Mutism. I wanted to squeeze him. I did feel at times that it moved along a little too quickly, but it was also slow burning – if that makes any sense at all.

However, I did have a problem with the pacing. The book spans over about a year and I felt that there was no real sense of time and the next thing I knew we were at the end of the school year. This did confuse me and I just wanted to be made aware of the jump lapse.

The Things I Didn’t Say packs a punch, there are things in the novel that will rip your heart apart and all you will want to do is hold Piper. Kylie Fornasier’s writing is beautiful and so easy to delve into and read.

Overall, The Things I Didn’t Say is a gorgeous novel that breaks you down. It pulls at your heart and slowly rips it. With beautiful writing and a slow burning romance that starts off quick, but takes it’s time.

Have you read The Things I Didn’t Say yet? What did you think of it? Are you going to read it? Let’s Chat!

#LoveOZYA Author Interview: Shivaun Plozza

Apr 22, 2016

I love Aussie YA. I love reading books from authors that live in the same country as me, that know things that people out of Australia might be so confused about. I love how sometimes they can incorporate this into their book and it is fabulous.

So in saying that, I have decided to start a new feature on Angel Reads spotlighting Australian YA Authors. Each Friday for the next couple of months, I am going to interview an OZYA Author. I thought it would be a fun way to share my love for Australian Young Adult authors with not only fellow Aussies, but everyone around the world. I want more Australian YA books to be read, because they are amazing.

First week I interview Sarah Ayoub, followed Fleur Ferris, then last week Will Kostakis. This week we have the lovely Shivaun Plozza. Shivaun is the author of Frankie (Penguin Australia, 2016).

Hi Shivaun, and welcome to Angel Reads. First can you introduce yourself to everyone? Tell us a little bit about yourself.

I grew up on a sheep farm in southwest Victoria, which might explain why I’ve been vegetarian for over twenty years! I moved to Melbourne for uni where I studied Creative Arts, majoring in Creative Writing. I worked as a teacher for a while and lived in London for a few years and now I work as an editor and manuscript assessor whenever I’m not writing. I’m a tennis fanatic, craft enthusiast and crazy cat lady in the making.

What has your writing journey been like? Where did you start? Why?

I decided I wanted to be a writer after reading The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams when I was fourteen. I’d always been an avid reader but this was the first time I’d completely fangirled over a book. I knew that I wanted to be someone who could create stories and characters that people would fall in love with the way I’d fallen for that book. I studied creative writing at uni but my writing wasn’t initially well-received – in fact, I got some seriously negative feedback that made me doubt my abilities as a writer. I kind of lost my way a bit at uni, trying to emulate the style of writing the university wanted rather than being true to who I was. It took me ages to come back from that. I was working as a teacher and was in the library one day with a class of year eights quietly reading. I picked up a book to read too – it was On the Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta, one of the best examples of contemporary YA you will ever come across. I completely fell for the story – Taylor and Jonah for ever! – and it reminded me why I wanted to be a writer and how I wanted to write.

What was the process of getting your first book published?

It took me around four years to complete Frankie. She actually started out as a character in a different story. And she wasn’t half as awesomely bold, sassy and kickarse as she is now. But I worked hard to make her the kind of character I wanted her to be and eventually she outgrew the original story. So I started again and wrote the story that she deserved. I made use of short courses (mostly through the amazing Writers Victoria) and my writers’ group to get Frankie ready for submission to publishers. I pitched the finished book at a Literary Speed Dating event in Melbourne, where you get to three minutes to talk to a room full of publishers. From there I had a couple of requests to read the whole book and then Penguin offered me a deal.

What has your journey been like after getting the deal for Frankie?

It takes at least a year from when you get the publishing deal to the book arriving in bookstores. It’s been an exhausting but exhilarating time. I really enjoyed the editing process – working with a talented editor to make sure the book was the best it could be. And getting to see drafts for the cover design was so much fun – I’m so proud of the final cover. The best part was when they told me Melina Marchetta would be reading Frankie and supplying a quote for the cover. To have an idol read and actually enjoy my story left me weak at the knees. I don’t think anything will ever top that. The publicity side of it has been surprisingly fun. I’m actually quite a shy person so I was really dreading it but everyone has just been so supportive and the response to Frankie has been overwhelmingly positive.

You are an OZYA author, what are some of your favourite Aussie YA books?

So many! It’s going to be hard for me to keep it to just a few but I’ll try. On the Jellicoe Road (Melina Marchetta), Everything Beautiful (Simmone Howell), Finding Cassie Crazy (Jaclyn Moriarty), The Protected (Claire Zorn), In the Skin of a Monster (Kathryn Barker) and Six Impossible Things (Fiona Wood). This is just the tip of the iceberg – there are sooooooo many great OZYA books. I think we do the best YA in the world (but I could be a little biased!).

You can find Shivaun at @ShivaunPlozza on twitter, shivaunplozza.com and add her book to your goodreads. My review for Frankie will be up in the next couple of weeks.

Frankie by Shivaun Plozza

Pages: 314
Publish date: March 23rd 2016
Publisher: Penguin Australia
ISBN: 9780143573166
Purchase: Book Depository – Amazon US – Amazon AU – Dymocks

Frankie Vega is angry. Just ask the guy whose nose she broke. Or the cop investigating the burglary she witnessed, or her cheating ex-boyfriend or her aunt who’s tired of giving second chances…When a kid shows up claiming to be Frankie’s half brother, it opens the door to a past she doesn’t want to remember. And when that kid goes missing, the only person willing to help is a boy with stupidly blue eyes … and secrets of his own. Frankie’s search for the truth might change her life, or cost her everything.

***

Thank you Shivaun for joining me at Angel Reads. That is it for this week’s #LoveOZYA Interview. What did you think of Shivaun and Frankie? I hope you enjoyed it. Let’s Chat!

Come back next week for some more Aussie fun. If you want to know more about the #LoveOZYA movement check out the website for all the details.

Book Review: The Darkest Corners by Kara Thomas

Apr 21, 2016

The Darkest Corners by Kara Thomas

Pages: 336
Publish date: April 19 2016
Publisher: Delacorte: Random House Children’s
ISBN: 0553521454
Purchase: Book Depository – Amazon UK – Amazon US – Amazon AU

The Darkest Corners is a psychological thriller about the lies little girls tell, and the deadly truths those lies become.

There are ghosts around every corner in Fayette, Pennsylvania. Tessa left when she was nine and has been trying ever since not to think about it after what happened there that last summer. Memories of things so dark will burn themselves into your mind if you let them.

Callie never left. She moved to another house, so she doesn’t have to walk those same halls, but then Callie always was the stronger one. She can handle staring into the faces of her demons—and if she parties hard enough, maybe one day they’ll disappear for good.

Tessa and Callie have never talked about what they saw that night. After the trial, Callie drifted and Tessa moved, and childhood friends just have a way of losing touch.

But ever since she left, Tessa has had questions. Things have never quite added up. And now she has to go back to Fayette—to Wyatt Stokes, sitting on death row; to Lori Cawley, Callie’s dead cousin; and to the one other person who may be hiding the truth.

Only the closer Tessa gets to the truth, the closer she gets to a killer—and this time, it won’t be so easy to run away.

The Darkest Corners:

I received an e-arc of The Darkest Corners by Kara Thomas from Random House Children’s via NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review, this has in no way influenced my thoughts and feelings about the book.

The Darkest Corners is probably one of my favourite YA psychological thrillers. This book will mess with your mind and you will have no idea what is coming next. There are twists and there are turns.

The Darkest Corners follows protagonist Tessa as she returns to a place that she was not keen on returning to. She left Fayette with she was nine when a travesty rocked her world, she tried not to think about the things that happened before she left – she tried to lock them away, but when she returns everything starts to crumble.

Then we have Callie, she is the one that stayed, but she was never the same again. She parties every weekend to hide from the memories that were burned into her mind and hasn’t talked to Tessa since she left. So when she returns, everything comes back to haunt her.

I really enjoyed Tessa, she was such an intriguing protagonist. She has gone through so much up until now and through the novel she has to go through more. My heart broke for her so many times.

Callie, annoyed me at times, but I understand why she was the way she was. Like Tessa she has gone through hell and her mechanism of dealing with it was different to Tessa’s.

We see throughout The Darkest Corners that their friendship is quite strained. They haven’t talked to each other in forever and when events are brought back into the light that happened the summer before Tessa left – you know there is going to be trouble.

I really enjoyed the writing style of Kara Thomas in The Darkest Corners. It was quite easy to read, but the way that she can flip the plot on its head was brilliant.

I liked that The Darkest Corners had little to no romance. I usually find it quite hard to read a book without romance, however the book was that engaging that it didn’t need it for me.

The book had me on the edge of my seat. I didn’t know who to believe, what to believe or what was going to happen next. There were some things that I did guess, but that had nothing to do with the main plot. The book kept me thinking and I could not put it down, until I knew what had happened.

Nevertheless, we see questions that Tessa has been asking herself for years come into light. About Callie’s dead cousin, to what really happened that night.

Overall, The Darkest Corners by Kara Thomas is a mind-blowing, heartbreaking, intense thriller, which questions; truth, friendship and if someone can manipulate what they thought had happened. It shows us that family is not always family, not matter what you believe. If you like any book that will mess with your mind and ask you to question everyone, then this is the book for you.