Review: Anatomy Of A Boyfriend by Daria Snadowsky

Title: Anatomy Of A Boyfriend
Author: Daria Snadowsky
Genre: Young Adult, Romance, Sex, First Love
Pages: 259
Rating: A-




Synopsis: Before this all happened, the closest I'd ever come to getting physical with a guy was playing the board game Operation. Okay, so maybe that sounds pathetic, but it's not like there were any guys at my high school who I cared to share more than three words with, let alone my body.

Then I met Wes, a track star senior from across town. Maybe it was his soulful blue eyes, or maybe my hormones just started raging. Either way, I was hooked. And after a while, he was too. I couldn't believe how intense my feelings became, or the fact that I was seeing-and touching-parts of the body I'd only read about in my Gray's Anatomy textbook. You could say Wes and I experienced a lot of firsts together that spring. It was scary. It was fun. It was love.

And then came fall.

First Impression: I've seen this book around for a while now (it was published in 2008) but had never truely looked into it until just this year. Shortly after Christmas I was at Borders with all the money I had received in gift cards, when I noticed it. I'm not going to lie, it's the fact that this story has to do with first love and first sex and all those firsts that I picked it up. One the back, above the summery, it reads "Snadowsky’s debut novel is an unusually honest portrayal of a teen girl’s sexual discovery . . .  Like Forever, this sensitive, candid novel is sure to find a wide audience among curious teens." — booklist This was a good enough reason to buy it for me. 

Full Impression/Review: Dominique Baylor, a high school senior from Fort Meyers, Florida, aspires to be a doctor and cares more about reading Grey's Anatomy (the actual medical book, not the TV show or anything to do with it) then she cares about boys. When not competing on her school's science quiz team, she can be found at home playing the board game Operation with her parents. That all changes when she meets Wes, a shy fellow senior and local track star. Instantly she's hooked. After a couple months of exchanging hundreds of IMs and a dozen or more e-mails, she finally admits her feelings for Wes and makes the first move. And so starts their relationship.

     Both unexperienced in love (and sex), they prove to be eager to learn and so things get pretty hot and heavy just on their first date (they run past first base and explore second to the fullest). After a couple more months, they are ready to go All The Way Home and lose it on Prom Night, as cliché. 

    At a first glance, this novel could sound redundant, cliché, and overdone a million and one times, but I'm not writing a review from the perspective of a first glance. Even going so far as naming her an inspiration for the novel, it's obvious that Snadowsky is a fan of Judy Blume and took a hint from Forever... (1975), a novel that also follows the first love and the exploration of sex from the point of view of a couple in their senior year of high school. 

   Dom is mature and goal-oriented. She has her sites set on getting excepted into Stanford and becoming a doctor. On the other hand, her experience with guys is limited to kissing party games from her earlier teen years and the bodies of the drawn male figures in her medical books. In many ways she is the polar opposite of her best friend Amy, a rather free spirited artist who is saving her virginity until college, but does everything else. When Dom meets Wes at the big football game the day after Christmas, she finds herself really falling for him. As the months pass they start dating, exploring, and loving each other. By Prom they do feel ready and decide to take that next step. Everything seems to be going well for the happy couple who, though are off to different colleges in the fall, strongly believe they will weather the tempest of long distance relationship and come out on top. But then fall does come and things change.

   While this book is filled to the brim with sex, it's not the racy and sensual sex that is the making of a hardcore romance novels. Instead it's very realistic, frank, insightful, graphic, and even somewhat scientific -- as are the thoughts that come to Dom as she sees a certain where-the-sun-don't-shine part of Wes (of any guy) for the first time. Dom's view on sex shine through clearly -- she's the type of girl who believes in love before sex, another thing that makes her the opposite of her casual hookup type best friend. The novel isn't the most original idea put out there, but Snadowsky brings a fresh and new look onto this theme. Unlike many books, Wes is neither a loner/outcast, or jerk/ jock. He is simply the average teen male -- good and bad included. 

    In her debut novel, Snadowsky weaves together a story that feels both old and new bring up many of the essential and basic questions of relationships: Is sex love? Is there a difference between first love and true love? How can you tell? Like Forever... before it, Anatomy Of A Boyfriend an authentic and candid story sensitively but frankly explores sex in our modern day society, experiencing it for the first time, and dealing with it in a mature way. 

                                         ~ XOXO, 
                                                Ariana

Review: Where She Went by Gayle Forman

Title: Where She Went
Author: Gayle Forman
Series: Sequel to If I Stay 
Genre: Young Adult, Romance, Social Issues
Pages:260
Rating: B or B+


Synopsis: It's been three years since the devastating accident . . . three years since Mia walked out of Adam's life forever.

Now living on opposite coasts, Mia is Juilliard's rising star and Adam is LA tabloid fodder, thanks to his new rock star status and celebrity girlfriend. When Adam gets stuck in New York by himself, chance brings the couple together again, for one last night. As they explore the city that has become Mia's home, Adam and Mia revisit the past and open their hearts to the future and each other.

Told from Adam's point of view in the spare, lyrical prose that defined If I Stay, Where She Went explores the devastation of grief, the promise of new hope, and the flame of rekindled romance.

First Impression: I loved the first book (If I Stay) and had very high expectations for this book. When I first heard that there was going to be a sequel to If I Stay, I was jumping off the walls. Then I heard that it was not through the point of view of the original protagonist (Mia) but instead her boyfriend's, Adam Wilde. I tend not to read books from guys point of views, though I have made exceptions. Adam seemed like a good guy in the first book, but he didn't exactly come off as the type of guy that I really wanted to read a book through his eyes. Now looking back, I think it's because while I loved If I Stay, Forman never fully developed her minor characters. Though it may be because Mia saw most of the people in her life in a perfect, glimmering light.

Full Impression: I read If I Stay a couple of years ago and fell in love with the book that chronicles Mia Hall's "decision" whether "to stay or to go" after a devastating accident claims the life of her parents and her nine year old brother, leaving her in critical condition and a coma. The book had been raw and heartbreaking but at the same time funny and heartwarming. Spoilers: After spending a day or so having an outer body experience (sorta like a ghost except her body was still alive and hooked up to monitors) and reflecting on events that were her reasons to stay, wake up, and try to move on with her life, or go and die with the rest of her family, she wakes up -- though not because she really choose to. 

    Where She Went picks up three years later. Mia went off to Juilliard and left Adam behind. After months of being in his own mental and emotional coma, Adam woke up and wrote heartbreaking and angry songs that propelled his band to stardom. But groupies, money and stardom could not fill the void. Not even music could. Adam has become a living dead thing. Medication for anxiety and sleeping keep him moving. He's tired and numb and lost. Both Mia and her life has become a complete mystery to him. The glorious and loving rockstar god that Mia had painted him as in If I Stay is seemingly gone; left behind is a hurt and pain that has taken over his life and made Mr. Perfect into an emo train wreck. 

    After an interview gone wrong, Adam finds himself wandering New York. As luck would have it, who else would be playing a concert that night but Mia herself. And of course he would just happen to pass by the theater shortly before it begins. After the performance, Mia calls him to her dressing room, they exchange awkward  greetings, and he leaves. It could have ended there had not Mia went after him. With less then 24 hours before they are destined to go in opposite directions (Adam kicking off the band's second tour in London and Mia gearing up for her own journeys abroad with her cello), Mia and Adam experience a "Goodbye Tour" of New York. As the travel through the city, they must face what time and different lives have done to them, what the effects of "staying" after losing almost everything has done to Mia, and what losing Mia has done to Adam. 

    The story is told through alternating chapters of the present and flash backs, much like how If I Stay was written. The only difference is that with If I Stay, those flashbacks played a VERY crucial part in Mia's and the stories development. While it's good to know exactly what happened to Adam and Mia between If I Stay and Where She Went, I found some of the flash backs too slow and some where even unneeded. Chapter thirteen is completely unneeded. It's nine pages that only explore the fact that he did it with some groupies and wasn't the kindest to one in particular that followed him to the next city after a one night stand. I found myself counting down the pages until the flashback chapters would end and the story would once again continue Adam and Mia's adventures through New York. That's never good. 

Cover:  Sigh. I loved the original hardcover version of If I Stay a lot better then the paperback cover. The cover of Where She Went ties in nicely with paperback version of Where She Went, but I wish they had made the hardcover version of the sequel book tie in with the hardcover version of the first. That's not saying that the cover isn't beautiful in it's own right (because it is), I just guess I wanted something a little different.  

Dislikes: To much back story. I wish the author had picked up the pace of the flashbacks and had concentrated on the main story more. Some of the flashbacks were too long and too slow, some where completely unneeded, and some where good, but would have definitely benefited from some editing to cut down the length and pick up the speed. At times it seemed that the author was trying more to reach a certain amount of words or pages per chapter, then she was trying to tell a story. You don't need a lot of words just to say a lot.  

    

Final Thoughts: Like If I Stay, Where She Went is emotional and raw. I highly recommend that you read If I Stay, but Where She Went also makes a great stand alone book. The good parts were excellent and really helped me connect with Adam, but the good kept on being interrupted by the slow. While maybe this book wasn't perfect, it definitely gave a closure not only to If I Stay, but also to Mia and Adam.

      ~XOXO, 

             Ariana

Congrats Leigh Fallon!

Dear Bloggie,
        So I just heard today that an author off inkpop (and a person whose blog I follow) is getting published by Harper Teen! This is the first inkpop book that will be published by the hosts of the site. I now regret having never read her book (it made the top five in 2010), but I'm defiantly putting it on my future wish list. I just wanted to make this post and 1) congratulate her and 2) sorta advertise for her book. Once it comes out I'm definitely doing a review of it! With inkpop producing it's first real novel, who knows who may be next...?

                                 ~XOXO,
                                             Ariana

Outlining: Part One Done

Dear Bloggie,
        Guess what? I outlined the first part of my book today! That's one third outlined! Well, sorta. I used flash cards (a writing tip I read in a book once) to write down scenes. Now I know what my plot is to work off of. It's only the first half (up to the part where she decides to...[no spoilers!]) but at least it's something. I know how the last half goes, but it's the middle part that's going to be hard. I normally never really know what is going on in the middle. Oh poop.
     Still, I have a while before I even have to start outlining that. I'm only on chapter three (though it's my goal to finish it tonight) and have written a total of sixteen cards,  meaning I probably have six to eight chapter of material (that would bring me to ten chapters for the first part). That in mind, I'll probably end up with around twenty-five to thirty chapters in total. At around 2,500 words a chapter (around my average), that's about 70,000 words, 300 pages. Not bad. Becoming was almost 400 and over 90,000 words. On average, a YA manuscript is 50,000 to 80,000 words. This book should fit that bracket perfectly.
    I really need to stop procrastinating. I can do all

the math in the world (with a calculator since I suck at math) on how many pages my book will be and how many words I will write, but at the end of the day, if I don't write anything nothing is going to happen! I'm like the biggest procrastinator! I'm writing about procrastination, all the while procrastinating on writing my book! *Sigh* More more later. (Much later, like after I have written chapter three!).

      ~Ariana