Saturday Pages: Simon vs The Homo Sapiens Agenda and My Heart & Other Black Holes!!!

Hey guys! I hope you're having a wonderful weekend, in my case I'm hoping to have slightly less busy shifts during the weekend! And I hope to have some time to read ARCs because I need to catch up and finally reach the ever ellusive 80% on NetGalley!

For this week's Saturday Pages I have two mini reviews since I don't want my pending reviews to end up piling up as usual! Both books are contemporaries, both highly recommended by The Midnight Garden ladies (thank you Wendy & Kim) and both will be counted towards my 2015 Debut Author Challenge and my 105 Challenge as Contemporary YA is one of my categories in that challenge!

Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I'm usually not a big fan of contemporaries but when one comes as highly recommended as this one, I know I need to check it out, and Simon didn't disappoint at all.

Simon is a wonderful character, one that feels real and genuine, a teenager struggling with not just his being gay and coming out to his friends and family, but with many of his choices and actions, since he sometimes feels like he has to explain himself to everyone around him, and that can he hard enough when you're not sure about yourself.

I loved that this book dealt with many things, some lighter issues and some tougher issues. From bullying, to underage drinking, to misunderstandings with friends, family dynamics, falling in love and coming out and being upfront about who you are.

Simon & Blue start talking to each other via e-mail, and they slowly but surely become friends, support each other and help each other to be brave enough to face whatever's to come. They end up falling in love and it was so heartwarming and cute and adorable and *sigh* full of feels!

I loved the rest of the characters, because they're all there, real and genuine and with their own strenghts and flaws. Simon's family are wonderful, with great sibling dynamics & support and very present parents that are both supportive and parental enough to set up boundaries and limits.

A wonderful debut and contemporary read, a book that made me so very happy and made me cry and left me with a wonderful book hangover and a massive craving for Oreos! Very much deserved 4.5 stars!





My Heart and Other Black Holes by Jasmine Warga

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This is one of those fantastic books that need to be read despite the fact that it will break your heart, but it will also give you hope. And I must thank my dear Kim from The Midnight Garden for telling me that I HAD to read this book no matter what!

This book deals with the very tough themes of depression and suicide, and it does so in a way that feels genuine and realistic and that makes it very easy for you to feel what Aysel and Roman are feeling.

Both Aysel and Roman are at that point of feeling that they want the sadness and the pain to stop, and since they cannot see a way out of the blackness, they feel like they need that to stop and so they're planning their own suicide and find each other as "suicide buddies".

I love how by getting together to plan their suicide, they end up talking about their reasons for wanting to end it all, and how that made Aysel feel a lil different, how it make her finally find some hope, even if it was just the tiniest bit and she decided that she wanted to hold onto that hope. And how she decided that she needed to hold onto Roman and try and spark the same hope in him.

Prepare yourself for being overloaded with the feelings of sadness and black tunnel and then feel the relief of finding a lil spark that can make you see that there's more than just that darkness. A fantastic contemporary book that gave me a massive book hangover! Very much deserved 4.5 stars!


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Mark This Book Monday: Summer on the Short Bus by Bethany Crandell!!

Hello guys!

How's your Monday going? Mine has started rather well, with some highly awaited book mail and some really good sleep last night, so I'm ready to start this new week! And the fact that I'm off work till Thursday after working 6 days last week is obviously helping with that good feeling too!

For this week's Mark This Book Monday I have a book that I will highly recommend to everyone, because it's both funny and full of depth and makes us think and makes us laugh. I also count it towards my 105 Challenge as part of my YA contemporary category!

Summer on the Short Bus by Bethany Crandell

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I got Summer on the Short Bus shortly after release last year but for one reason or another it got buried under more books in my Kindle library and remained unread. Then I took part on the 1 year anniversary blitz for it and thought that it was about time I read it and it took over my Sunday!

Constance "Cricket" Montgomery is a spoiled brat with an hilarious and offensive inner (and outer) monologue that made her feel extremely real and infuriating and that once confronted with a summer sentence working at a camp, tries every one of her tricks with her daddy to get out of it. And once she can't and has to face working on Camp I can with kids with special needs... she literally faints!

This story is full of snark, laughs and some serious fuzzy feels! I love how Cricket has to get off her spoiled rich girl horse and face more than her own share of prejudice and realize how that hurts when it's directed at you, as opposed as being the one spewing it. The best thing about Cricket though is how upfront she is with everything. She doesn't have a politically correct filter that makes her pretend to be one thing while snarking inside as another and that makes her honest and genuine, even in her spoiled brat self.

I love how Cricket learns a lot about empathy and about herself and her past and her own family, in a way that she could have never imagined, and even if it all might have been initiated by making the most out of spending time with the resident hottie and Zac Efron look-alike, it is not a change done only on surface. She is not faking for Quinn's sake, so she'll look good, the campers and other counselors are making her see things differently, and see herself differently, and she doesn't want to go back to being who she was anymore.

All the characters had a lot of depth and personality, from the campers, counselors to even Cricket's dad. There is so much more to them all than what we see at first when we meet them, and even if we don't get to know them all in depth, the characters have that realness to them.

A fantastic book that made laugh and snicker, and smile and gave me quite a few swoony feels and that managed to give quite a few lessons on diversity, equality, empathy and being honest with outselves and others without ever feeling preachy or self-righteous!

Very well deserved 4 stars and a very much recommended read for all of those that love contemporaries and all of those that aren't entirely sure if it's their genre too!



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