ARC Review: The Love That Split the World by Emily Henry

Author:  Emily Henry
Genre: Young adult, fantasy, sci-fi, contemporary (ALL the genres!)
Publisher: Razorbill
Publication Date: January 26, 2016
400 pages, hardcover

Check out the full synopsis on Goodreads.

Shout out to the wonderful Little Shop of Stories for letting me take this ARC! Check them out if you’re ever in Decatur, GA!

Lovely, beautifully written, unique, fantastic, wonderful. Okay, real review, Stefani.

In THE LOVE THAT SPLIT THE WORLD, Natalie starts seeing her world but not quite. She sees a preschool where a garden store usually is, an extra wing on the local church, a red door instead of a green one, a field full of grazing buffalo where her town used to be. And then, after a visit from the apparition she’s seen off and on her whole life (named Grandmother) when she’s told she has 3 months to save “him”, Natalie sees a mysterious and beautiful boy named Beau in the middle of her high school football stadium. And now all of the stories that Grandmother told her in the middle of the night start to make sense. But who is she supposed to save? And how?

I really don’t have the proper words to talk about this book. The writing is splendid, saccharine and soulful and aching and lovely. This book is full of life, stories, love, and sadness, and it is absolutely beautiful. I was immediately pulled into the story through Grandmother’s myths and legends (tales of gods and humans, bravery and love) and was kept completely mesmerized until the last word.

I want to go down to the filed, to stand with this boy between the sky and the grass until every part of me touches every part of the world. – ARC page 32

There were a few times in the middle when the story felt a bit drawn out, but I didn’t really lose interest. Mostly I wanted the story to focus a bit more on what was happening to Natalie (as the sci-fi/fantasy aspects were super intriguing) rather than the romance, though the book is called The LOVE That Split the World so I should’ve known. Plus, Matt got on my NERVES. But I swear, if I die without ever having a friendship like Natalie and Megan, I’m going to be super disappointed. Seriously – best friendship in a book EVER.

Also, this:

And when you see those good things–and I promise you, there are so many good things–they’re going to be so much brighter for you than they are for other people, just like the abyss always seems deeper and bigger when you stare at it. If you stick it out, it’s all going to feel worth it in the end. Every moment you live, every darkness you face, they’ll all feel worth it when you’re staring light in the face. – ARC page 205

The bottom line: A lovely, unique, spellbinding story of love, humanity, bravery, and passion. Emily Henry’s writing is GORGEOUS and full of a wonderful new voice that I can’t wait to get more of. The middle part dragged just a bit, but not too much. Also, BEST FRIENDSHIP EVER.

Rating: 8 – Freaking fantastic

ARC Review: Don’t Fail Me Now by Una LaMarche

Author:  Una LaMarche
Genre: YA, contemporary
Publisher: Razorbill
Publication Date: September 1, 2015
288 pages, hardcover (273 ARC)

Check out the full synopsis on Goodreads.

NOTE: I was provided with an ARC of this book through the Decatur Book Festival as Una was on one of the panels I moderated. This does not influence my review.

Don’t Fail Me Now is a unique, diverse, moving road-trip novel chock full of interesting characters and all the feels. Forced into a terrible situation by their absentee mother, Michelle, Cass, and Denny (three African American children surviving on Michelle’s part time job at Taco Bell) join forces with their newly found half-sister Leah and her stepbrother Tim (white, middle-class, and taken care of) on a cross-country road trip to meet Buck, their dying father who left them years ago. Nothing goes as planned and the hardships the group faces both brings them closer together and pushes them farther apart. Michelle is a strong character who takes care of her family; she’s been through a lot in her short life and doesn’t let it get to her. I think this shows what an incredible, hardworking character she is, but I also appreciated the scenes where it is very obvious that she is only human.

I think my main issue was that, while race and white-privilege are brought up, they aren’t as well-addressed as I would have liked. I think the story could have gone a little deeper into these issues. My other complaint was the middle part of the book, which dragged a bit to me, especially considering the strong beginning.

The bottom line: Diversity; road-trip; strong main character; hardships and persistence. If any of those things sound like something you’d like, pick this one up.

Rating: 6.5 – between good, but not great and pretty good

Waiting on Wednesday: The Love That Split the World by Emily Henry

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Breaking the Spine in which we share a book that we are eagerly anticipating!

Publisher: Razorbill

Author: Emily Henry

Release date: January 26, 2016

Synopsis from Goodreads:

Natalie Cleary must risk her future and leap blindly into a vast unknown for the chance to build a new world with the boy she loves.

Natalie’s last summer in her small Kentucky hometown is off to a magical start… until she starts seeing the “wrong things.” They’re just momentary glimpses at first—her front door is red instead of its usual green, there’s a pre-school where the garden store should be. But then her whole town disappears for hours, fading away into rolling hills and grazing buffalo, and Nat knows something isn’t right.

That’s when she gets a visit from the kind but mysterious apparition she calls “Grandmother,” who tells her: “You have three months to save him.” The next night, under the stadium lights of the high school football field, she meets a beautiful boy named Beau, and it’s as if time just stops and nothing exists. Nothing, except Natalie and Beau.

Emily Henry’s stunning debut novel is Friday Night Lights meets The Time Traveler’s Wife, and perfectly captures those bittersweet months after high school, when we dream not only of the future, but of all the roads and paths we’ve left untaken.

Why I’m excited: Jeff Zentner called this one a “lightning strike of a book”, which I think is a seriously wonderful way to describe a book. The synopsis for The Love That Split the World sounds absolutely fascinating, doesn’t it? I love books with time travel and tough choices and love. I’m really looking forward to reading this one.

Waiting on Wednesday: Don’t Fail Me Now by Una LaMarche

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Breaking the Spine in which we share a book that we are eagerly anticipating!

Publisher: Razorbill

Author:  Una LaMarche

Release date: September 1, 2015

Synopsis from Goodreads:

From the author of Like No Other, the novel Entertainment Weekly calls “One of the most poignant and star-crossed love stories since The Fault in Our Stars“: What if the last hope to save your family is the person who broke it up to begin with? 
 
Michelle and her little siblings Cass and Denny are African-American and living on the poverty line in urban Baltimore, struggling to keep it together with their mom in jail and only Michelle’s part-time job at the Taco Bell to sustain them.

Leah and her stepbrother Tim are white and middle class from suburban Maryland, with few worries beyond winning lacrosse games and getting college applications in on time.

Michelle and Leah only have one thing in common: Buck Devereaux, the biological father who abandoned them when they were little.

After news trickles back to them that Buck is dying, they make the uneasy decision to drive across country to his hospice in California. Leah hopes for closure; Michelle just wants to give him a piece of her mind.

Five people in a failing, old station wagon, living off free samples at food courts across America, and the most pressing question on Michelle’s mind is: Who will break down first–herself or the car? All the signs tell her they won’t make it. But Michelle has heard that her whole life, and it’s never stopped her before….

Una LaMarche triumphs once again with this rare and compassionate look at how racial and social privilege affects one family in crisis in both subtle and astonishing ways.

Why I’m excited: I am all about the diversity in this book. I’m also looking forward to what sounds like a big focus on family. I really enjoy books that focus on the what family can mean to a person, whether traditional or not. Honestly, I especially like books that focus on non-traditional and/or diverse families. I feel like this is going to be a super emotional and complex storyline, and I love that. Plus, ROADTRIP. Yes, I know it doesn’t sound like the most wonderful situation, but I can’t wait to read about Michelle and Leah and how they survive.

Waiting on Wednesday: An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Breaking the Spine in which we share a book that we are eagerly anticipating!

Publisher: Razorbill

Author: Sabaa Tahir

Release date: April 28, 2015

Synopsis from Goodreads:

Set in a terrifyingly brutal Rome-like world, An Ember in the Ashes is an epic fantasy debut about an orphan fighting for her family and a soldier fighting for his freedom. It’s a story that’s literally burning to be told.

LAIA is a Scholar living under the iron-fisted rule of the Martial Empire. When her brother is arrested for treason, Laia goes undercover as a slave at the empire’s greatest military academy in exchange for assistance from rebel Scholars who claim that they will help to save her brother from execution.

ELIAS is the academy’s finest soldier—and secretly, its most unwilling. Elias is considering deserting the military, but before he can, he’s ordered to participate in a ruthless contest to choose the next Martial emperor.

When Laia and Elias’s paths cross at the academy, they find that their destinies are more intertwined than either could have imagined and that their choices will change the future of the empire itself.

Why I’m excited: Rome-like world? Contest to choose new emperor? What sounds like an epic love story? Tons and tons of great reviews? I’m a sucker for big, sweeping worlds like this, and I’ve got to say that this one sounds awesome. I was a little wary of it at first because of the hype, but I’m not going to lie, I can’t wait to dive in to this one.