Blink Once

Title: Blink Once
Author: Cylin Busby
Pub: 2012; Bloomsbury Children's
Pages: 320
Genre: Young Adult
Etc: Props up to NetGalley and Bloomsbury

Trapped in your body
Others might be surprised that you can
Hear life around you.


Holy geez, be still my heart!  I DEVOURED this book.  In all honesty, I can't recall the last time I was caught off guard by a book in such a way.  Not only did the plot unravel in a way that I couldn't step away from, the story grabbed my heart and treated it like a puppet, fully mastering maneuvers to make me sigh, yearn, and appreciate my life.

Blink Once is told from West's point of view.  He awakes unable to move his body and no recollection of what's going on.  Nurses come in and out moving his position on a bed and he finally realizes that he is in a hospital.  His mind is active but he cannot communicate.  Stricken with terror, he moves in and out of consciousness.

Worst. Nightmare. Ever.  Right?  I consider this to be worse than death - consciousness trapped in a body that cannot express itself.  The panic.  The despair.  Reading West's inner dialogue filled me with anguish.  Emotionally, I was gasping for my own breath.

West is alone through this turmoil for what seems like months, until one night the girl in the adjoining room pulls her feeding tube mechanism out of her cave and comes to visit.  Olivia realizes that West can't communicate but that he's there, so she devises a system of blinks to correspond.  West immediately latches onto this connection.

Olivia is able to sneak a glance at West's file and tells him that he hurt his spinal cord and that there is this experimental operation that possibly might give him movement.

Through all of this, West is having nightmares which he discusses (through blinks) with Olivia.  Olivia believes that the hospital rooms might be haunted.  There was a previous boy who was in West's room, a burn victim, he was removed with no follow up.  Olivia assumed that the boy died and maybe the other nightmare-ish visions are telling West about other patients.

Blink Once has been described as both a paranormal story and a love story.  I found it to be neither.  There were elements of paranormal, and maybe it's because of my own opinions of the genre, that I wouldn't include it.  Blink Once felt REAL; paranormal strikes me as fanciful and imaginative.  Also, although West and Olivia supposedly "fall in love" with one another, I didn't really buy that.  I wouldn't categorize this as a love story at. all.  What West and Olivia have between each other isn't really love but it's more than friendship.  It's binding, but hardly romantic.  I think that it tries to be, but falls short for me.  And you know what?  I'm OKAY with that.  I don't think I would have enjoyed it as much.

And here's another thing...halfway through the book I kept wonder how it would end.  Would it fall short?  Would it reach its aspirations.  And you know what, it mostly did.  There were parts that made me feel the plot line was rushed, and you know, a wee bit unbelievable.  BUT it was never the part that someone would expect to be unbelievable.  All of THOSE aspects I bought hook, line, and sinker.

The Fault In Our Stars (Audio)

Title: The Fault in Our Stars
Author: John Green
Pub: 2012; Penguin
Pages: 318
Audio Length: 7 hours
Narrator: Kate Rudd
Genre: Young Adult, Death & Dying

Okay, let’s just get this out right away because it’s surely not a spoiler but TOTALLY relevant to the ahmazingness of this book. 

The kids in The Fault in Our Stars have Cancer.  All of them.  They all meet in a survivor’s support group, but it’s one of those survivor groups where some are surviving with Cancer.  Like Hazel.  She’s this cool kid who lugs around an oxygen tank because she was diagnosed with Stage IV thyroid cancer and there were tumors in your lungs but some miracle treatment shrunk them and things look better even though she feels like she’s a walking grenade because her life expectancy is so short.

Needless to say Hazel does not like to get close to people.  Why bother. She’s got one foot in the door of death.  She’s perfectly content reading her books and watching ANTM (um, America’s Next Top Model, who are you people who don’t know that?!?).  BUT, her parents, being good parents that they are encourage her to go to the before mentioned support group.  And that’s when her life gets a bit messy. 

Hazel meets Augustus.  Intelligent, witty, in-remission, Augustus.  (He sticks cigarettes in his mouth but doesn’t light them, you know for the POWER of it; love this kid!).   Hazel is in this thing where she can’t stay away from Augustus but also doesn’t want him to get uber close because well - she’s gonna die, and his cancer has an 80% survivor rate.  Augustus is fierce and pretty much tells her she’s crazy, he wants to be around her.

Oh and then, to make this an even MORE beautiful book than what it already is, there’s a book that Hazel ADORES and gives to Augustus to read and he GETS IT too (readers, how important is this? We all have those books that we wish the world would get).  Aaand, Hazel has questions about the end because like life there’s not really an end and there’s characters that go on without a story because theirs story was the one being told.  So, Hazel and Augustus go on this mission to find out what happens to the other people.  Really?  How amazing is that?  How many times have you wondered what happens to the people in your books, you know?  Blows my mind at the adventure and romanticism.

This book reminds me (as always) of the brilliance that is John Green.

The Audio Version

I don't consider myself much of a book cryer you know?  I don't know why, and maybe it's more to do with the fact that most books I read probably aren't all that sad, but I don't tear up...MUCH LESS get a full fledged stream of tears.

I owe part of that with this book because of the narrator.  Her inflections were right on. Her voice was right on.  The separation of the characters - AMAZING.  Much like Khrystine Hvam, after I finished listening to THIS audio, I began looking for other audios that Kate Rudd has done.  (I'm thinking maybe Holly Black's Tithe trilogy?)

Oh and #winning there's even a Q&A with John Green at the end.

Extremely Loud

Title: Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close
Author: Jonathan Safran Foer
Pub: 2005; Houghton Miffin
Pages: 326
Genre: Literary Fiction, Grief, 9/11

The Purchasing Story

Oh gracious where in the world do I begin?  This book has been collecting mad dust as it sat on my bookshelves for at least three years.  It was a whimsical purchase for me, back when it was bought.  Unlike most whimsical purchases, I remember the circumstances of this ole book clearly.  I was in the store, perused the books and my eyes focused in on this one.  I'd never heard of Foer, but had seen the film Everything is Illuminated back in the day and lurrved it.  I glanced at the back of the book and was a wee bit skeptical of the plot [a key? searching the city for clues? uhhh...] but then after skimming the pages I couldn't help but be drawn into the format of it.  By the time I got home and finished whatever books were in my stack, I quickly forgot about the book's intrigue.  Instead, I focused in on the oddity of the plot.  A key? Searching the city for clues? Uhhhh...

The Initiative 

Then the movie came out and I love me some Tom Hanks and Sandra Bullock.  Also, Di is not a big film watcher at all BUT this film caught her attention and she really wanted to see it.  I have this thing about books to movies.  I'm [partially] okay with watching movies based on books if I don't own the book.  But I'm head over jose (as in noway) to watching a movie first when I own the damn book.  Absurdities aside I cracked its spine.

The Process

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close **is** a process.  There are unidentified points of view, but unlike other books who use this technique [I hate it!], here it is mastered and viable to the story.  A story that meanders from past to present, and at times the future that's really the past.  And the themes! Oh the glorious themes of life and death; war and love; eternity and moments.

Oskar is grief-stricken after the death of his father in the world trade center and if someone tries to sum up the book, maybe they will say it's about Oskar dealing with this debilitating death. But it's not really about how one deals with death as much as how grief enters our soul and takes home there.  And how if we're lucky, we can eventually evict Grief; but if we're desolate, Grief evicts Hope and Redemption.

Expectations Win

Let me tell you what.  There were so many beautiful and amazing things about this book.  Guys! It had me on a massive emotional train.   Like I said above (?) there are three different tales all interwoven into this one huge epic tell of survival.  The grandparents, ohemgee!  Grandpa doesn't speak anymore since losing his livelihood (soon to be wife, his child in her womb, and his parents) in the horrific tragedy of Dresden.  And while reading I had this moment of clarity and I know it's probably only something that would occur to me...but the description of the bombing.  Wow! It gave me shivers.  And then it was like, I never really think about the OTHER casualties of World War II.  I mean, c'mon, immediately when someone says WWII I think the concentration camps.  Is it just me?  And then I felt pity because it seems as though all of those other victims of the war kinda got screwed on their own empathy.  This book creates that empathy for me.  It makes me want to seek out the other stories, the ones that I've ignored.  I often say: I'm over wwii lit; enough with the concentration camps; no mas! But seriously?!  What do I really know about Dresden?  This small sleepy town in Germany that got demolished?  Or D-Day? Or any of that.

For the mere fact that this book caused me to SEE other stories, it's forever going to be a win.

And then there's Oskar.  Is there ever a kid that you wouldn't want to hang out with?  You know how I talked about the key and the search for the lock and that whole storyline just throwing me off a little.  Like, how could that even make sense?  And it doesn't.  But it does! Because if you read it and get to know the father you immediately GET the glorious relationship that Oskar and him have.  Do not let the plot dissuade you!

The film

Like I said, the reason why I picked up the book to FINALLY read it was because Di had the inclination to see the movie.  After speaking to friends and reading reviews I was a wee bit concerned.  Everyone said that it essentially blew...like a big blue whale of water..blew.  *ugh*  Isn't that the worse.  So, I walked into the film already thinking that I'm gonna hate this darn thing and it's going to ruin the whole experience.  Ummm...can I make a confession?  I cried.  Like, seriously cried.  Like I had that kinda cry where I didn't want everyone in the theatre to freakin' know I'm sobbing so I'm holding it in, but then that creates this awful pressure headache and Yikes! it was one of those kinda films.  And I'm watching it and totally get that maybe everyone isn't getting out the same things I'm getting out of it because I read the book!  I know their background stories.  I know why gramps is acting this way.  I know why Oskar needs him there.  I know what they missed and tried to condense but still managed to make it awesome and a smidgeon of the partial truth which is the best that one can hope for when watching a film adaptation.  Right?  It's kinda like...you experience this great moment in your life...and then you try to tell your bestie about it.  And you gush and you try to get them to understand this great moment, but it's already gone and they kinda get it. But you totally do because you were there.  I was THERE int is story.  So, yay. It worked for me.  I sobbed.