book review

Denton Little’s Deathdate

ShililoquyLeave a comment

Denton Little’s Deathdate by Lance Rubin (April 14, 2015, Knopf Books for Young Readers)
Review by KM

I did it again, friends. I started a book for the beginning of a series when the sequels are no where close to be out. I always say I’m not going to do it anymore, that I’m going to wait until all the books are out. It never works.

I don’t know for sure that this is the beginning of a series, but I need more, so I am demanding a sequel. Maybe two or three.

 

Summary

Denton Little’s Deathdate takes place in a world exactly like our own except that everyone knows the day on which they will die. For Denton, that’s in just two days—the day of his senior prom.

Despite his early deathdate, Denton has always wanted to live a normal life, but his final days are filled with dramatic firsts. First hangover. First sex. First love triangle—as the first sex seems to have happened not with his adoring girlfriend, but with his best friend’s hostile sister. (Though he’s not totally sure—see, first hangover.) His anxiety builds when he discovers a strange purple rash making its way up his body. Is this what will kill him? And then a strange man shows up at his funeral, claiming to have known Denton’s long-deceased mother, and warning him to beware of suspicious government characters. . . . Suddenly Denton’s life is filled with mysterious questions and precious little time to find the answers.

Musings

 

I love the premise of this plot. Everyone knowing when they’d die? That’d be really cool! Or really anxiety-inducing, to be honest. I think I’d like to know when I’d die. It definitely forces you to embrace your morality and the alterations in the way death is mourned are intriguing.

 

The writing itself is funny and fast paced. There is so much action happening in each scene. I don’t like to gender books at all (Read what you will and definitely don’t condemn someone for what they’re reading!), but I have noticed that it’s much easier to get one of my guy friends to read a book that’s fast-paced than it is to get them to read a drawn out plot. I totally plan on buying this for my guy cousins in high school.

 

Denton makes douchey mistakes that would typically make me hate a character or avoid them if they were real. I’m not quite sure how, but his perspective made me think of them more as accidents — things he stumbled into without realizing he got there. I definitely wouldn’t call him innocent, but there’s this oddly endearing part of his character that makes me grant him more leeway.


I will warn some parents: there are more sexual references than I would have expected, probably enough to get it banned from some school libraries, but certainly the right amount to make it realistic. I never went a day in high school without a guy talking about their dick at the lunch table. If it was completely dry, I’d probably have connected less than I did.

All in all, I’m really looking forward to a sequel to this. It deserves one. I’ll let starting a new series before it’s finished slide — but only this time.

Snow Hunters

seandersonLeave a comment
cvr9781476714813_9781476714813_hr.JPGby Paul Yoon
Review by SA

Have you ever stood in an art gallery, and been so entranced by a painting, time standing still as you stared into its depths, imagining the lives of the people depicted in the gorgeous landscape, wondering what brought them there, and how they knew each other? That is the sense you get when reading Snow Hunters, Paul Yoon’s second novel after the award winning Once the Shore. You are gazing into the depths of a painting as you read, time politely waiting for you to finish.

The book centers on a North Korean defector, Yohan, and his life as he makes a new home for himself in Brazil, after the war that tore his country – and his life – apart. As Yohan deals with the new culture and language, the trauma he suffered as a soldier in the war still clings tight to his mind, making it difficult for him to form bonds with the people he meets; yet each character who comes into his life will have a deep impact on his world. The few people who impact his life are very important to him; Kiyoshi, the tailor of little words, for whom Yohan works when he moves to Brazil, who helps him refine a trade and make a place for himself in this new world; Peixie, the groundskeeper at the local church, a loyal friend; and the children Santi and Bia, whom he watches growing up, and is strongly attached to. He must learn to let go of his past, so that he may forge new relationships with them.

The flashbacks to Yohan’s life before, during, and after the war, his life in the prison camps while trying to heal Peng, reflect the deep scars that still affect Yohan’s present. Time jostles back and forth, juxtaposing past and present, a reflection of just how present the trauma actually is. Many flashbacks occur suddenly, the present becoming past without a moment’s notice: Yohan is incapable of forgetting, his PTSD unspoken but present. This is the main theme of the short novel: moving on, healing, and change, and how necessary they are for growth.

It is a quiet novel: you get the sense that you are watching a long exposure of someone’s life, seeing the characters weave in and out of the fabric and leaving their marks. Yohan does not speak much, and is incredibly solitary, becoming more so when he defects, lost in the many foreign languages and culture shock. Though quiet, the novel is in no way slow; the action is fluid, moving from present to memory and back again, and in the capacity of the author to create such complete views into Yohan’s world brings life to even the smallest passage. Quiet is in no way a negative connotation when it comes to Snow Hunters.

This is a remarkable novel. While I am not the kind who usually enjoys historical fiction, there’s no denying that the beauty of Yoon’s writing won me over. Reading the book was a cathartic experience, a quiet testament to the slow healing of time. It is, in all way shapes and forms, a work of art. I highly recommend it.