Stacking the Shelves and Showcase Sunday (46)

Stacking the Shelves is hosted by Tynga's Reviews. Showcase Sunday is hosted by Books, Biscuits and Tea.

These memes are a replacement of The Story Siren's In My Mailbox.

Stacking the Shelves and Showcase Sunday make a place to showcase your new books,

whether you obtained them through the post or otherwise.

I received four very different books this week!

I received an adult, non-fiction book called Tiny Beautiful Things as well as an adult fiction book called Cold Killing. I also recieved two young adult books - The Madness Underneath and Deadlands, which I'm particularly excited about.

Enjoy your weekend!

Colin Fischer

Colin Fischer by Ashley Edward Miller, Zack Stentz

Hardback, 256 pages

Published 7th Feb 2013 by Puffin Books

Shelves: arc-or-review, books-i-own, contemporary, cover-appeal, mental-health, read-in-2013, realistic-fiction, to-read, young-adult

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Description via Goodreads:

SOLVING CRIME, ONE FACIAL EXPRESSION AT A TIME

Colin Fischer cannot stand to be touched. He does not like the color blue. He needs index cards to recognize facial expressions.

But when a gun is found in the school cafeteria, interrupting a female classmate's birthday celebration, Colin is the only for the investigation. It's up to him to prove that Wayne Connelly, the school bully and Colin's frequent tormenter, didn't bring the gun to school. After all, Wayne didn't have didn't have frosting on his hands, and there was white chocolate frosting found on the grip of the smoking gun...Colin Fischer is a modern-day Sherlock Holmes, and his story--as told by the screenwriters of X-Men: First Class and Thor--is perfect for readers who have graduated from Encyclopedia Brown and who are ready to consider the greatest mystery of all: what other people are thinking and feeling.

The cover of Colin Fischer is the first thing that drew me to the book - I loved all the little hand drawn faces with the emotions written beneath them. After checking out the blurb, the cover started to make sense, making me want to pick this up and start reading straight away!

Needless to say, it didn't take me long to start this! I'm very interested in anything medical, psychological or mental-health related and the fact that this was a book that focused on Asperger's Syndrome was what made it really appeal to me. I have read a few other fictional books that focus on the subject, such as The Curious Incident of the Dog in The Night-time and Mockingbird, both of which I really loved. I'm certainly no expert on this subject and I have no experience of it, so I can't say whether this is an accurate portrayal of the syndrome, but I thought that it was portrayed in a reasonably fair manner. Colin's syndrome makes it difficult for him to interact with others and so social situations are particularly hard for him. One thing Colin is good at is logic - he is a very logical person and very intellectual, nobody could deny his intellect on a large variety of subjects.

When there is a gun shot heard in his the cafeteria of his school, Colin is the only one who stays and observes what happens - initially, he isn't fully aware of what went on around him, but he slowly pieces facts together, figuring out what happened at the school. I admit that I wasn't actually all that interested by the incident - for some reason, it just didn't grab my attention and I wasn't all that interested in the situation. The fact is, I didn't really care all that much about the people around Colin - most of them were pretty disrespectful towards Colin and just generally easy to dislike. I think that if I could connect with them as well as Colin, it may have been different. The 

I connected well with Colin and I felt for him - I didn't feel sorry for him at all - I just felt accepting, which was both an important and a great thing for the authors to achieve. I really enjoyed reading his notebook entries which I thought really gave us some insight to his true thoughts, it was something that allowed us to get into his head and see what he was thinking, even if Colin wasn't outwardly open with others. For me, Colin was thankfully the best feature of this book and I'm glad that the writing and portrayal of his character worked well for me.

Overall, this was an enjoyable book but the plot itself was lacking something. Colin's character is what redeemed this book and that was fine and understandable, seeing as he is the main focus of the book. However, the plot wasn't very interesting to me, it didn't work as well as similar plots have in other novels and didn't get me hooked. I would recommend this book just on the basis of Colin's character. I think that this will appeal to a lot of people, especially middle graders or younger young-adults.

From The Review Pile (47)

From the Review Pile is a meme hosted by Stepping Out of the Page every Thursday.

The aim of this meme is to showcase books that you've received for review (or if you don't receive review books, any book that you own and really want to read/review) but haven't yet got around to reading, in order to give the book some extra publicity.

I know that a lot of you have a huge pile of books that you want to read/review, but it understandably takes a while to get around to reading them all - here you can give a book (or two!) some of the publicity that it deserves, even if you haven't read it yet!

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This week, I'm going to showcase If You Find Me!

I hadn't heard anything about this book before I received it for review, and I still haven't heard all that much about it. I do love the premise of the book though and the sense of mystery is really urging me to pick this one up soon!

If You Find Me by Emily Murdoch

Hardback, 320 Pages

Expected Publication: 2nd May 2013 by Indigo

THERE ARE SOME THINGS YOU CAN'T LEAVE BEHIND ... 

A broken-down camper hidden deep in a national forest is the only home fifteen-year-old Carey can remember. The trees keep guard over her threadbare existence, with the one bright spot being Carey's younger sister, Jenessa, who depends on Carey for her very survival. All they have is each other, as their mentally ill mother comes and goes with greater frequency. Until that one fateful day their mother disappears for good, and the girls are found by their father, a stranger, and taken to re-enter the "normal" life of school, clothes and boys. 

Now, Carey must come to terms with the truth of why their mother spirited them away ten years ago, while haunted by a past that won't let her go ... a dark past that hides many a secret, including the reason Jenessa hasn't spoken a word in over a year. Carey knows she must keep her sister close, and her secrets even closer, or risk watching her new life come crashing down.

While The Others Sleep

While The Others Sleep by Tom Becker

Paperback, 250 pages

Expected Publication: 4th March 2013 by Scholastic

Shelves: arc-or-review, books-i-own, cover-appeal, historical, horror, medical-conditions, mental-health, read-in-2013, supernatural, young-adult

My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars

Description via Goodreads:

When Alfie Mandeville's insomnia threatens to embarrass his wealthy family he is sent to Scarbrook House, a sanatorium for wealthy children. Troubled by the eerie atmosphere and skittish patient, Alfie's condition gets worse, not better. He falls under the spell of the charismatic and cruel William Travers, who seems to delight in bullying the other patients. A mysterious sighting by the water tower in the woods stirs up turbulent memories of Alfie's time in India. And as he lies awake one night, Alfie is haunte by visions of a strange creature moving through the darkness at the edge of the patients' beds. Are his tired eyes hallucinating, or is starting to lose his mind? When Alfie learns that the creatures are hunting a demon escaped from the depths of Hell - and that the only protection against them is to be asleep - suddenly insomnia becomes the most dangerous condition of all... WHILE THE OTHERS SLEEP is a gripping psychological thriller - don't read it alone at night!

While The Others Sleep is not a book that I had heard much about before I received it in the post, and I still haven't heard all that much about it now that it's been released, which is a real shame. This book is very different to most of the young adult literature which is offered today, and I mean that in a very positive way!

As soon as I read the blurb of this book, matched with the creepy cover, I was so eager to read it. I'm not a massive fan of horror, but I'm majorly intrigued by old sanatoriums and psychiatric hospitals, so the setting couldn't have been more perfect for me! The setting of a Victorian sanatorium filled with lots of troubled children was both captivating and slightly scary. I thought that the description of the sanatorium was brilliant, emphasising the eerie feel of the place. The book isn't laden with heavy historical facts and the writing isn't  at all complicated, but the historical era that this story is set in undoubtedly allows a rather nightmarish atmosphere. 

I really enjoyed seeing how this book progressed and how the patients at the sanatorium interacted with each other. It did take me a little while to get used to the several characters that were mentioned, as I did find it a little difficult remembering who was who at first. There are several strong characters, though I didn't feel particularly enamoured to any of them - thankfully this didn't hinder my enjoyment of the book. The two characters that I was most interested in were Alfie, the protagonist, and his friend Selena. I personally thought that Selena was a much more intriguing character than the others as it was clear she and Alfie had a somewhat complicated history. We do get to learn about her, but I would still liked to delve even deeper into her mind. For me, Selena was the highlight of the book.

I liked Alfie as a character, though I admit that I didn't love or connect with him. I did go through a range of feelings towards him as the story developed and changed. I am quite torn about the revelation towards the end of the book, the 'twist', which is why I haven't given this book a higher rating. Though it was a good idea and clever on the author's part, I think that it made the rest of the book feel a bit underwhelming and as though we didn't truly get a good idea of Alfie. The ending of the story offers more action and a faster pace than the rest of the book and I'm sure it will to appeal to many.

Overall, I found While The Others Sleep to be a very well written book and also a refreshing, non-stereotypical approach to the young adult genre. If you're into psychological thrillers or horror, I'm sure that this will be a treat. Even if you're not particularly into thrillers, this would definitely be a nice change to your usual reading choice. Becker looks to be like a very promising author and I look forward to seeing what he comes up with next!