Tuesday, September 3, 2013

Leap of Faith

Leap of Faith by Jamie Blair
3/5 stars
Simon & Schuster BFYR, 2013
234 pages
YA Contemporary

Source: Received an e-ARC from the publisher through Edelweiss.

Though YA contemporary is my favorite genre, I sometimes find myself discontented reading the same sorts of stories set in your typical American high school. Luckily sometimes a book like Leap of Faith comes along and shakes me up.

Faith has lived with an angry drug-using mother with a history of bad decisions her whole life. The latest is to become pregnant with her drug dealer's baby so that he and his girlfriend can raise a child. This absolutely outrages Faith who spends the nine months of pregnancy trying to stop her mother from drinking, smoking, and otherwise abusing drugs but as the big day approaches, she becomes even more upset about the possibility of this new baby living a life that looks anything like hers. So once baby Addy is born, Faith takes her, driving south and making a new life for herself as Leah, the young single mother. There Faith finds a community that embraces her including cute guy Chris. But what will Chris think when her past catches up to her?

I am so in awe of Faith and the steps she took to give Addy a better life, one filled with love and being wanted so unlike Faith's own childhood. Her heart was definitely in the right place even if her actions are objectively wrong. She makes a lot of mistakes in her new life as Leah such as overfeeding Addy and trying to use a gym for her day care. But she does learn and seems poised to continue mastering the whole motherhood thing until a cop starts poking around.

Chris was an unbelievably sweet and understanding guy. He seemed almost superhumanly perfect but was a very welcome addition. I also adored his grandmother and the other characters who provide support to Faith. One character I wish we could have seen more is Faith's older sister Hope who has fueled her desire to escape their horrible upbringing into athleticism leading to a scholarship and who does not have the capability of taking on parenting at this time. Their mother (and her cronies in the drug business) are just awful. There seems to be not a moment of anything redeeming or human about them and though their page time is short, their many wrongs to Faith and others hover over the pages.

However, despite some strong characterizations, this book just didn't quite gel for me. I really do like your average high school read and I was highly anticipating reading some other books I had in my queue. But it's just hard when you don't particularly like the main character (I liked the new people she met) and you can't muster up much enthusiasm to keep reading. I did manage to finish this book, which leads to the following mini-rant.

My biggest complaint about this book is the ending. What happened there? I honestly thought my e-galley had been cut off...which maybe it was.  Maybe the finished copy will provide some resolution and make it abundantly clear that the last words are the ending. As it stands though, I was super disappointed. I know I'm a reader who prefers a nice closed definite ending but I can handle some vagueness and openness. This was so far past that though to a whole new level of abrupt. If you've read this book, what do you think? Almost every other review I've seen has mentioned this lack of resolution.

Cover: I like the colors but I'm not really feeling the two girls overlapping on the cover.

Other Opinions:
Chick Loves Lit
The Compulsive Reader
Katie's Book Blog
Nick's Book Blog

18 comments:

  1. This does sound good, and not that similar to most YA! I'm curious about the ending now, I often feel like books end too quickly and it usually makes me want more explanation

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    1. The ending has been very frustrating to a lot of bloggers-I'd love to hear if you could make an argument for it being fitting.

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  2. Yeah the ending was pretty... um. Not good?
    I did like Chris and his grandma though, they were awesome

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    1. I just...what happened there? I seriously thought I got a defective egalley only to discover that everyone had that problem. It really left a bad taste in my mouth.

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  3. This sounds like an interesting read, but I loathe abrupt endings.

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    1. This might have gotten a higher rating if not for the ending-that was how big a problem I had with it.

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  4. O.O That kind of scares me. I'm generally a huge fan of anything that sounds as good as this one, but an abrupt ending? So abrupt that you thought the galley had been cut off? O.o I may not be feeling it, LOL. Awesome review, girly! I hope that your next read has a better ending. (:

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    1. Since then, I've read a lot of books with more satisfying conclusions (thankfully!) but this one is still irking me. So.not.happy :|

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  5. You're right. That is a unique concept for a story. I can definitely sympathize with Faith's decision and see where she does it because she cares, although there are miles of bad reasons why she shouldn't have. But two things would definitely bug me 1) not liking the MC is something that will affect my reading, as will 2) the lack of an ending. I'm with you. I prefer a definitive close to a book, but I also appreciate vagueness at times. However, if it doesn't seem like there's any closure at all? Yikes! Not sure I could manage that. Thanks for putting this on my radar! I hadn't heard of it before.

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    1. I did not get any closure from this ending and from what I've seen on other blogs, they didn't either. An ending that gave a bit more information would have been so much appreciated.

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  6. I love it when books surprise you, especially when it comes to contemporary fiction. (I mean, it's easier to be surprised when it's a story about werewolves, right?) This sounds really good, for some reason it wasn't high on my radar, but I think I'll pick it up sometime when I get the chance. Thanks for the review!

    Wendy @ The Midnight Garden

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    1. I will be interested to see your thoughts especially about that ending!

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  7. Hmmm….. I don't mind open endings if I think they fit the story. Not sure if I'll try this, but thanks for giving me an idea of what to expect...

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    1. I can handle open endings though they're not my favorite. This one is so far past that though.

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  8. I was really excited when reading the first part of your review, it sounds like a fascinating story and one that would really rile me up (that mother would have me SO angry!) but the fact that it has a weird abrupt ending and that you didn't really like the MC has me concerned that I might feel the same way.

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    1. The mother is horrible! I've read a lot of bad YA parents but she's up there. The ending is a huge source of disappointment to me-still upset about it over a week later!

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  9. I also seriously wish the ending was more defined. I loved the book but I felt like I was just completely cutoff by the ending. It was such a sharp, hard end that I'm not sure I liked it too much.

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    1. It really brought my mood down and left me with a lingering negative impression of the book :(

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