Falling For You

Falling For You by Lisa Schroeder
4.5/5 stars
Simon Pulse, 2013
355 pages
YA Contemporary Issues

Source: Library

So because I'm bad at reading reviews, I thought this book was solely focused on an abusive relationship since that is what the blurb was teasing. Actually it has a wider perspective, looking in on the dark private drama of a family (flashback to Eleanor and Park for me). I found this to be an intensely emotional read and I had to put it down and gasp for breath several times before the halfway mark.

Rae lives with her mother and jerky stepfather whose bad decisions and selfishness at first seem almost manageable but that facade quickly disappears as he dogs her steps and demands her paychecks to cover his debts. At school, romance with new kid Nathan seems like it could be a dream come true but his real self is soon revealed.

This is a hard review for me to write, just because my experience with this book was more about feeling. Usually I can point out what I really liked and what bothered me pretty easily but here everything is tangled up in a ball of emotions and it is hard to separate all that out. There are two points I would like to mention though.

I guess I could say that I liked that this was not "just" an abusive relationship book because Rae figures out pretty quickly that Nathan is bad news and spends more time ducking her stepfather. Still I wonder some things about Nathan. It seems like he left a bad situation at his previous school and I wondered if he had hurt a girl there. Also was he telling the truth about his bad family life or was he making up a story in order to get attention and sympathy from Rae? As a reader who likes getting answers, I would have appreciated knowing.

Something else I liked was that Rae's school had a poetry column in their newspaper that originally allows for anonymous content but Rae ends up questioning this decision. Does keeping the writer's identity secret mean we are encouraging everyone to look perfect and never admit the bad things that are going on in their life? This is something I've thought about a lot in terms of social media, especially facebook. Some days it seems like everyone has the best life ever while you're the only one struggling, which is just not true.

Overall: This is a story with so much depth and emotion-be prepared for an intense journey that thankfully ends on an optimistic note.

Cover: Doesn't this cover look like it belongs on an intensely romantic story?

Other Opinions:
A Reader of Fictions
Addicted 2 Novels
Good Books and Good Wine
Pure Imagination

The Day Before

The Day Before by Lisa Schroeder
Simon Pulse, 2011
307 pages
YA; Contemporary; Verse
4/5 stars

Source: Received a free e-ARC through Simon & Schuster's GalleyGrab program.

I've long had attitude about books written in verse form; I hadn't read many and I didn't have a very high opinion of them despite largely enjoying the few I had read.  But I wanted to give Schroeder a try after seeing some positive buzz and I want to read all of the books in the Contemps Challenge.

The result was me pleasantly surprised by the emotional punch packed within this book.  As someone who ordinarily loves a page crammed with text, the layout of this book is very sparse with unique spacing and plenty of white space in stark contrast to the books I normally read.

The plot itself is pretty simple; Amber is going out on her last day before...something, which is slowly revealed through the book.  Although she starts the day by herself, she soon meets Cade, who is also having his own day before.  There could be tears aplenty for the both of them (and I got a bit misty-eyed due to the writing) but they focus on this last day, largely avoiding the unwanted topic of the next day.  It's pretty simple but the level of the writing elevated this book, making an imprint on my heart.

Cover: I think it kind of looks like she's dead, which is not actually what the title refers to (it's not The Day Before I Died).  The grass is really pretty though.

Read for Contemps and E-book challenges.