#BBCreativityProject Yellow Team: Quiet YA – Devoted and The Sacred Lies of Minnow Bly

The wonderful Nori from Read Write Love is hosting the Book Blogger Creativity Project. She’s compiled several teams of newbie and veteran bloggers, who are meant to work together to come up with a feature that they’ll post on their blogs. We are supposed to get creative and work as a team, and I’m really happy to say I’m part of the Yellow Team! Here’s the other members of my team (I’m linking you to their Twitters so you can learn more about them!): CJ Listro, Karina Romano, Kim, Sara, Emma K, Lauren, The Book Jar Blog, and, of course, Nori.

My team has decided to each write a post about a book (or books) that we would consider Quiet YA – books that didn’t receive huge publicity campaigns, that aren’t being made into movies, didn’t receive a lot of press, aren’t best sellers or award winners, etc. I couldn’t pick one book to feature, so instead, I’ll be focusing on two books I read this year that I think deserve more attention, two of my favorite Quiet YA books – DEVOTED by Jennifer Mathieu and THE SACRED LIES OF MINNOW BLY by Stephanie Oakes. Both of these books are powerful, thought-provoking, moving, and very well-written. They will make you question yourself and others; they’ll make you cheer and tear up, smile, laugh, cry, and love.

When I reviewed Devoted, I said it was quiet, powerful, honest, and beautiful. I flagged at least 30 or 40 passages because they were so well-written or difficult to read or powerful. Rachel is such a great character, and you should all meet her. My only issue with the book is that we didn’t have more of it. I wanted to keep reading about Rachel and her new life. I loved it so so much. Check it out on Goodreads if you want to learn more!

As for The Sacred Lies of Minnow Bly, I thought it was thought-provoking, intriguing, beautiful, sad, hopeful, and so many other adjectives. You’ll be completely engrossed in this story because of Oakes’ writing. It’s decidedly disturbing and difficult to read, but it’s well worth it. My review goes more in depth, and you can find it on Goodreads too!

I paired these two together, 1. because I love both of them, but 2. because they each talk about religion and the different ways it can affect you. They have two completely different stories here, but they also both make you question, make you want to learn and experience new things. They are both disturbing in places and thought-provoking. They are both powerful and engrossing and beautiful and horrifying. And they both deserve your attention and time, and I hope some of you will check them out.

Tell us about some of your favorite Quiet YA books, and make sure you check out the #BBCreativityProject hashtag on Twitter to see what everyone else has come up with!

The Disney Book Tag

This tag was created by Katytastic over on YouTube to celebrate the release of The Isle of the Lost by Melissa de la Cruz. I was tagged by Aria at Book Monster and Maren at The Worn Bookmark! Thanks so much for the tags, Aria and Maren!

1. The Little Mermaid – a character who is out of their element, a “fish out of water”

Rachel from Jennifer Mathieu’s latest novel, Devoted, leaves the home and family she’s known her whole life to start fresh in the “real” world. She doesn’t really understand how the real world works and must navigate first jobs, first roommates, and figuring out what she truly believes.

2. Cinderella – a character who goes through a major transformation

Kristin from I.W. Gregorio’s debut None of the Above finds out that she is actually intersex. Her life, identity, and world are completely turned upside down and she must figure out who she really is while everyone else does too.

3. Snow White – a book with an eclectic cast of characters

I’m going to go with a children’s book for this one: The Day the Crayons Quit by Drew Daywalt and illustrated by Oliver Jeffers is filled to the brim with eclectic characters…er, crayons. Overworked Blue and Mediator Green and WHO IS THE TRUE COLOR OF THE SUN? Yellow or Orange?! Love it.

4. Sleeping Beauty – a book that put you to sleep

Hands down: If I Stay by Gayle Forman. Ugh.

5. The Lion King – a character who had something traumatic happen to them in childhood

Harry Potter. Duh. He had like a million traumatic things happen to him while he was a child. Actually, all of those kids who went to Hogwarts during those years had pretty traumatic things happen to them.

6. Beauty and the Beast – A beast of a book (a big book) that you were intimidated by, but found the story to be beautiful

The Book of Strange New Things by Michel Faber is 500 pages long and absolutely intimidating. I’m so glad I read it though. Not only is it physical beautiful (the pages are gilded – they are gold-edged) but the story is incredibly fascinating and strange and…definitely beautiful.

7. Aladdin – a character who gets their wish granted, for better or worse

I’m going to have to go with Maren on this one: Simon from Becky Albertalli’s debut Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda wishes with everything he has to meet Blue, the boy he’s been emailing back and forth for months, and is it for better or worse? You’ll just have to read it and find out. 🙂

8. Mulan – a character who pretends to be someone or something they are not

Lila Bard in V.E. Schwab’s A Darker Shade of Magic dresses up like a man in order to be accepted socially, or at least so she doesn’t draw attention to herself. I chose her because even though she’s pretending to be someone she isn’t, she’s an incredibly badass character.

9. Toy Story – a book with characters you wish would come to life

Hands down, I would want the characters from Maggie Stiefvater’s The Raven Cycle books to come to life. I just want to be best friends with all of them: Blue, RONAN, Gansey, Noah, Adam, and definitely Chainsaw. I want to hang out at 300 Fox Way and fly around in helicopters looking for Glendower.

10. Disney Descendants – your favourite villain or morally ambiguous character

I’m a big fan of morally ambiguous characters in books. They are often more complex, more interesting, and more terrifying than the protagonists. My favorite is probably Kevin from We Need to Talk about Kevin by Lionel Shriver. He may not be so morally ambiguous. I mean, it’s pretty obvious that he is absolutely evil, but why is he that way? Nature? Nurture? It’s just absolutely fascinating to read about him. Plus, Ezra Miller does a pretty amazing job at portraying him on screen.

I’m tagging: 

Rachel at Confessions of a Book Geek

Alison at Hardcovers and Heroines

Shaina at Shaina Reads

Kay at It’s a Book Life

Joey at Thoughts and Afterthoughts

ARC Review: Devoted by Jennifer Mathieu

Author:  Jennifer Mathieu

Genre: Contemporary, Religion

Publisher: Roaring Brook Press

Publication Date: June 2, 2015

336 pages, hardcover

Check out the full synopsis on Goodreads.

I’ve been trying to put into words WHY I loved this book so much for over a week now. It’s difficult to write a review for a book that you just loved so much, but I’m going to try.

Devoted, Jennifer Mathieu’s second book, is completely and utterly fascinating. It’s about Rachel, a girl who’s grown up in an uber-religious household (she’s a member of the Quiverfull movement). She’s homeschooled and as the oldest currently living in the house, she’s also expected to take care of all of her younger siblings. Her father is the authority figure and all decisions are made through him. But Rachel is curious and is beginning to question everything she’s been taught. She wants to learn, to read, but that’s not how her family operates.

I LOVED Rachel. I loved her curious mind and her need to question and learn and experience life herself before making decisions. Her journey from faithful, devoted daughter to who she becomes later on (I won’t spoil, just read it!) was beautiful and difficult and I just wanted to reach into the book and hug her and tell her it’d all be alright. I got frustrated with her a few times, but none of her thoughts or decisions felt wrong or unrealistic. She’s complicated and complex, but SO determined to be herself.

This is Jennifer Mathieu’s second book, and I could really see the growth from her first book, The Truth About Alice (which I also really liked). The writing in Devoted was brilliant. Mathieu handles the topic with such care and everything was delicately done. This book was…troubling, for obvious reasons, but it was so powerful. Devoted is quiet and sincere and earnest.

Honestly, my only issue with this book is that I wish we’d had a little more time with Rachel in her household before she started to question. But really, the more I think about this book, the more I love it.

The bottom line: I could go on and on for days about why I think Devoted is brilliant. It’s quiet, powerful, honest, and beautiful. I flagged at least 30 or 40 passages because they were so well-written or difficult to read or powerful. Rachel is such a great character, and you should all meet her. I wish there was a sequel.

Rating: 8 – freaking fantastic

P.S. Thank you so much to Jen for sending me an ARC of Devoted! 🙂