Paradise by Jill S. Alexander {ARC tour}

Published: July 5, 2011 by Feiwel & Friends
Received: ARC tour from Jen at I Read Banned Books

Paisley Tillery is the drummer for a country rock band. If they can make it to the stage at the Texapalooza music fest, then Paisley will be closer to her dream of a career in music and a ticket out of her small Texas town.

Drumming and music are what Paisley has always wanted. Until the band gets a new lead singer, the boy from Paradise, Texas. With Paradise in her life, what Paisley wants, and what she needs, complicate her dreams coming true. {taken from goodreads.com}

First I want to say a huge THANK YOU to Jen from I Read Banned Books for sending me a copy of this book on her ARC tour.  I had added this one to my TBR list awhile back & jumped at the opportunity to read it this far ahead of it's release date.  The synopsis set the scene for a beautifully written story about a girl from a rural Texas town, who has a passion for music, & the ambition to make her dreams come true.  That right there grabbed my attention, as I'm sure it does for a lot of people.

Paisely represents every young girl who has a dream of making it big, & getting out of this small town life.  She's been under the watchful eye of her down-home, obsessive, controlling mother for too long.  In her mother's eyes, the only way to make something of yourself is to focus on being the best the town has to offer.  Money & status are two very important things in her mother's eyes.  Both of which Paisley could care less about.  Music & the drums is what is important to Paisely & she will not stop until she succeeds in her goal of playing one of the biggest music festivals in Texas; in hopes of being noticed & finding her ticket out of town. 

Secretly Paisely meets with her band to practice in the late afternoons, among the never ending pastures, for which she calls home.  It is here that she meets their newest member of the band, a handsome young man who not only can sing but also has talent for the accordion.  Immediately Paisely's attention is focused on Paradise (her nickname for him since he is from the small town of Paradise, Texas).  Her mind begins to wonder what those fingers would feel like tickling her skin, rather than the keys of that accordion.  Thoughts that never entered Paisely's mind are starting to consume her & soon her focus on the Texas music festival begins to shift.

Jill S. Alexander does a superb job of describing the elements of what Texas represents, not only in the green pastures, but also the life of a small country town.  Being a girl from Texas, I felt myself identifying with a lot of the descriptions.  There is a scene in particular where Paisely meets her band & other friends at a barn party, out in the middle of nowhere.  Yes, barn parties really do exist.  And yes, they really do serve trash can punch in which you consume so much of it that you're forced to relieve yourself behind that bush over there!  Ahh Texas.  So classy.  I also really enjoyed the descriptiveness of the band, their musical instruments, & the way it made Paisely feel; not only to play it, but also to hear it.  If I listened hard enough I almost heard Paradise's accordion against Paisley's melodic drum beat, accompanied with the band's guitar strums.

The relationships that Paisely had were true & convincing.  I understood the pressures that her mother put on her.  I also understood Paisely's reaction to want to hide her dreams of becoming a famous drummer girl, rather than seek the wrath of her disapproving mother.  The connection she felt to Paradise was convincing as well.  The two of them eased in to a relationship that was pure & meaningful.  Even though he began as distraction to Paisley, he soon became the catapult that set their band in motion & gave them the opportunity to fulfill their dreams.

I really enjoyed every thing about this book up until the last 15 or so pages.  If I could I would have ended the story there.  I will not go in to detail, so that I do not spoil anything.  But I will comment on the fact that the true ending left me a little disheveled.  I felt that the author took time & patience in building the story to be something quite beautiful, but then a turn of events occurred & I found myself literally wondering what in the world just happened?  With that being said, I still recommend this book for the entirety of it, I would just have ended it 15 pages sooner.

Recovery Road by Blake Nelson

Published: March 1, 2011 by Scholastic Press
Received: Good Golly Miss Holly (ARC) Tour

From acclaimed author Blake Nelson, the story of girl meets boy...in rehab.

Madeline is sent away to Spring Meadows to help with a drinking and rage problem she has. It's a pretty intense place, but there is the weekly movie night in town--where Madeline meets Stewart, who's at another rehab place nearby. They fall for each other during a really crazy time in their lives. Madeline gets out and tries to get back on her feet, waiting for Stewart to join her. When he does, though, it's not the ideal recovery world Madeline dreamed of. Both of them still have serious problems. And Stewart's are only getting worse....

Recovery Road is not your typical YA fiction.  The subject matter at hand is written in a way that leaves the reader feeling very raw & exposed.  Blake Nelson went above & beyond, in my opinion.  The reality of teenager Maddie admitting to her addiction, then telling her story of going through rehab, & coming out the other side is very compelling.  The flow of this book was very fast passed, but I felt that it moved along at just the right speed.  Blake Nelson gives just enough detail to put you inside the mind of Maddie, & her struggles of life as a teenage addict.

The story begins with Maddie in rehab.  She has just been dropped off by her parents at Spring Meadows, where she is to undergo detox & counseling.  Even through these first dark days, the reader is able to connect with Maddie.  I felt myself becoming fearful & sad for Maddie's life.  What could have possibly went wrong in this 16 year old girl's life to put her in such a lonely, empty place.  It is here, in this lonely place that Maddie meets Stewart, another addict who is attempting to get help and make his life better.  Instantly the two of them bond because they share the same understanding of what the other is going through.  Stewart becomes Maddie's hope.  Once she is released from rehab & dumped back in to the reality of her life, it is Stewart & the thought of being in love & being loved in return, that propels her to stay clean.  However, once Stewart is released from rehab just a short time after Maddie, they both realize that life is scary out in the real world.  They are both plagued with the desire to use again.

As the story progresses, Maddie's character begins to evolve.  As the reader, you understand her want to find purpose in something.  She begins focusing on her grades & making up for the time lost in school while she was in rehab.  It's a step in the right direction for her & I found myself cheering her on.  Then there are the moments with Stewart.  Their relationship is strained.  As much as Maddie wants to help Stewart, she also understands that he has to be willing to help himself first.  There were certain moments in the story when one would come to the aid of the other when they felt as though they were relapsing.  The bond they formed in rehab shown through in shattered pieces.  My heart broke for the two of them.  As much as I love a love story, I knew the relationship between Maddie & Stewart was greater than that.  They had the world stacked against them.  It was going to take so much more than an AA meeting to get them to the other side, together.

The rawness of Blake Nelson's writing & the quickness for which he carried the story appealed to me.  Addiction, at any age, is very scary & can control one's life so easily.  It's hard to sit back & watch someone you love destroy their life because of a pill or a bottle of alcohol.  However, it's very rewarding to see someone over come that addiction & move forward as a better person because of it.  I recommend this book to anyone who has been there, in those dark days.  I also recommend it to anyone who has been that helping hand for someone else during those dark days.  This compelling story is told with ease & grace, yet it is also gripping & brutally honest.  Make sure your kleenex box is near by!

(ARC) Tour: All You Get Is Me by Yvonne Prinz

Published: December 21, 2010 by HarperCollins
Received: (ARC) Tour from Good Golly Miss Holly

A summer of love, loss, and justice.

Things were complicated enough for Roar, even before her father decided to yank her out of the city and go organic. Suddenly, she’s a farm girl, albeit a reluctant one, selling figs at the farmers’ market and developing her photographs in a ramshackle shed. Caught between a troublemaking sidekick named Storm, a brooding, easy-on-the-eyes L.A. boy, and a father on a human rights crusade that challenges the fabric of the farm community, Roar is going to have to tackle it all—even with dirt under her fingernails and her hair pulled back with a rubber band meant for asparagus.
{taken from goodreads.com}

Lately I've been reading books about death, loss, heart ache - and photography.  So when this book arrived in my mailbox from an ARC tour that I signed up for awhile back, I wasn't surprised!  I had read the synopsis for this book & thought it sounded like something I'd enjoy.  Did it end up being my favorite YA contemporary piece? No.  But there was something in this story that grabbed me & I found myself turning the pages.

Fifteen year old Roar is being uprooted from her family home in the city by her father because her mother decided to check-out (literally!) of their lives.  They settle on a farm in the country, where Roar's life is anything but blissful.  Her father takes on the job of creating an organic farm & insists that Roar be an active member in helping out with the daily chores.  The author Yvonne Prinz does a good job of describing the elements of the farm to the reader.  I felt as though I was standing among the corn fields & fig trees, cleaning out the chicken coop along side Roar & tending to their roadside vegetable stand.  In between the daily chores on the farm, we are given glimpses at Roar's life back in the city with her mother.  Being the only child to a free spirit, we soon realize that Roar's mother didn't have a care in the world, at all.  She spent her days painting, which then turned in to drinking, & eventually resulted in leaving.  Instead of Roar's father tackling the issue he ignored it & ran from it.  Thus teaching Roar to do the same.

Everything comes to a screeching hault one morning when Roar & her father are on their way to a farmer's market to sell their goods.  An angry passer-by on the road ignites a collision head on with another vehicle, leaving Roar & her father to witness the tragic ordeal.  The reader is then told that the deceased victim of one of the cars is the wife of a local Hispanic farm worker, and the woman at fault is a middle class resident of the small town.  Roar's father makes it his mission to find compensation for the farm worker's family & not let the woman at fault get away with murdering someone with her car, even if it was an accident.  The town is left in a bustle when Roar's father helps the Hispanic farm worker by landing a law suit on the woman at fault.  The story takes an interesting twist when Roar meets that same woman's son, Forest, who is visiting his mother for the summer from the city.  A connection is sparked instantly between the two, and so a forbidden summer romance begins.

The illustration that Yvonne Prinz created is remarkable.  The description of this small town puts you right in the middle of their social dilemma.  Do the Hispanic farm workers deserve the same rights & attention as the American farm owners?  Can Roar come to terms with her mother's abandonment & turn to her father when she really needs him most?  All of this is captured through the lens of Roar's camera.  Her passion is photography & she is always carrying her camera around her neck.  A part of me wished that the author captured these snippets & placed them between the pages.  But even though she didn't, her words painted the most beautiful pictures.  The farm scenery & the feel of the forbidden summer romance between Roar & Forest is brought to life through Yvonne's words.  These descriptions could have been a character of their own.

It was the ending that captured me the most.  Without giving away the result of the story & Roar's father's lawsuit, I'll just say that not everything is wrapped up in a pretty bow.  Life is messy & with it comes consequences.  My heart break for Roar when it comes to her final "closure" regarding her mother.  However, my heart breaks even more when Roar must say goodbye to Forest as their summer romance comes to a close & Forest must return to the city.  It's their love that carried the story for me.  Intertwined with the beautiful landscape & the hard work that is being made on the farm - I kept flipping the pages until I came to the end.

I recommend this story to anyone who is interested in emotional YA contemporary pieces.  Though I had my doubts in some places, in the end Yvonne told a story about love, loss, & growing up.  It's a good piece for those wanting something tangible.

ARC Tours: Do you participate?

I found the wonderful  Good Golly Miss Holly when I first started book blogging a few months ago & I noticed that she offered ARC tours for anyone to sign up.  Her reading tastes are very similar to mine & immediately I found some ARCs that I knew I wanted to read!  So there I went.. signing up!  I just got my first one in the mail today & I am super pumped about reading it: Five Flavors of Dumb by Antony John. 

I'm curious though -- how many of you have participated in ARC tours? Is it something you enjoyed? Or do you have no interest in receiving them & passing them along?  If you'd like to know more about these ARC tours, check out Good Golly Miss Holly's Rules & Regulations post.