Dear Dylan

Dear Dylan by Siobhan Curham

Paperback, 288 pages

Published April 2nd 2012 by Electric Monkey

My shelves: arc-or-review, abuse, books-i-own, cover-appeal, read-in-2012, realistic-fiction, title-appeal, young-adult

My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars

Description via Goodreads:

A first crush. An unexpected friendship. A dream come true. Dear Dylan! Thanks so much for your email and I'm sorry about my last one when I said I love you. I hope you don't think I'm a weirdo mentalist?!!! It's just that I was watching Oprah yesterday and she said we should all say we love each other a whole lot more. Not to everyone of course. There's no way I'd tell my scummy step-dad that I love him because that would be lying. But the thing is, sometimes when I watch you on TV, I feel as if you're talking just to me and it makes me feel less alone. I know you probably get loads and loads of fan mail but I wanted to ask you - could we be e-mates? Yours hopefully, Georgie xxx.

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My thanks go to Electric Monkey/Egmont for sending me this book in exchange for an honest review.

I picked this book up as I really like both the cover and the title - they're simple and fun. I also thought that this book would simply be a fun set of e-mails from a teenage girl to her crush, Dylan. It  turned out that this was a fun book thanks to our main character, Georgie, but it also had quite a serious undertone too.


When Georgie contacts Dylan, a gorgeous, popular young actor, she is surprised when she actually gets personal replies. As it turns out, it's not actually Dylan that is replying to Georgie, but instead it his his mother, a woman called Nan. I think that it could be quite a challenge for a writer to portray an online relationship between a young teenager and an adult, but Curham didn't do a bad job at all. This is fiction, but I think it was quite realistic, with both characters having their hesitations regarding an online friendship. It was interesting to see how Georgie and Nan's relationship flourished throughout the book. I found myself very glad that they had each other as they both helped each other to find some happiness and to improve their lives - it was really quite touching. I thought that the format that this book was written in was a very good idea. As well as being modern, the e-mails exchanged were frank, open and honest with the personality of both Georgie and Nan shining through.


Georgie was a wonderful, bright character. Though her actions could be a little cringe-inducing at times, she was quite humorous and this book will guarantee at least a couple of laughs! She is stumbling through her teenage years and gaining new experiences, sharing them with us on her way. Georgie does seem like a bubbly, quite confident girl from the outset, but she has a lot of problems at home, including an abusive step-father and trying to discover what her father was really like when he was alive. Though maybe not as complicated, Nan is also coming to terms with the loss of her husband and her grief. Though there was a big age gap between the two, there was a definite connection which was lovely to read about.


For all those who like a little bit of romance in there book, that is covered for you, with Georgie falling for a male friend - though there wasn't all that much detail on their emotional connection, you could still sense it and it was sweet. If you like drama, there's some childlike bitchiness between Georgia and her friends, which makes for quite funny reading and gave me some desire to shout out 'Go on, Georgie!'.   


If you like Georgia Nicolson, you'll most likely warm to Georgie (they even have similar names!) - Georgie and the whole tone of Dear Dylan definitely has the same vibe as The Confessions of Georgia Nicolson (Angus, Thongs etc.) books so I  wouldn't hesitate to recommend this to any fans of Louise Rennison - this is probably the next best thing. This is a great book to pick up when you're in the mood for an easy read, with a little substance but not too much that it weighs story down. I'd quite like to pick up another of Curham's books. 

Jubilee Giveaway Blog Hop (INT)

Hurrah!

It is the long Jubilee weekend and as I'm very patriotic, I just had to do something on my blog to celebrate. I noticed this fantastic blog-hop and what would be better than to celebrate with a UK YA themed giveaway? 

This book is set in the UK but this is an INTERNATIONAL giveaway, so anyone can join in!

I'm going to giveaway a PAPERBACK copy of one of the best UK YA books that I've read this year as well as some swag! The book that you can win is:

Bringing the Summer by Julia Green

It's the lazy end of summer and Freya is about to start her A levels. Her brother Joe died a year ago, but she is slowly coming to terms with his death. She is beginning to feel ready for something new - a change. And then a railway accident brings her by chance into contact with the gorgeous Gabes. Freya is drawn not just to Gabes himself and his blond good looks, but everything about him, including his large, shambolic, warm and loving family, which seems to Freya so different to her own family of three... and then Gabes' clearly troubled older brother makes it clear he is interested in Freya - and Freya has some decisions to make about what she really wants.

You can check out my review of the book here!

All you need to do to enter is fill in the Rafflecopter form below:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Good luck and have a fantastic long weekend!

Stacking the Shelves/Showcase Sunday (6)

Stacking the Shelves is a meme hosted by Tynga's Reviews.

Showcase Sunday is a meme 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 quite a few books for review this week, all of which look great! From the publishers, I received Emma Hearts LA (The cover is SO shiny!), My Family and Other Freaks, The Night Sky in My Head (This sounds really interesting, kind of like The Curious Incident of the dog...), Hades, Shattered Dreams (I love the cover of this one) and Johnny Delgado: Like Father, Like Son. I'd also like to give big thanks to Paige Dearth for Believe Like a Child and to Leah Spiegel for sending me Uninvited and Confiscated!

 I also made quite a few swaps this week! I received Fever, Firelight, Not That Kind of Girl, Give Up the Ghose, A Witch in Winter and As I Wake. Although I've already read it, I regretted swapping my copy of Prozac Nation so I swapped again and received another copy of it. I am still in two minds whether to read it or not, but it's there if I decide I want to. I also received The Hunt from the lovely Vickie @ ComaCalm!

 I received one previous order from Amazon this week and that was a hardback of Unlocked for only a couple of quid, which I was introduced to by Vicky @ Books, Biscuits and Tea. It's written in verse (which I love) so I'm sure I'll read it very quickly and that it'll be very good!

What did you get this week?

The Glimpse (The Glimpse #1)

The Glimpse (The Glimpse #1) by Claire Merle

Paperback, 432 pages

Expected Publication: May 7th 2012 by Faber and Faber

My shelves: arc-or-review, books-i-own, coming-up-next, currently-reading, dystopian, mental-health, read-in-2012, sci-fi, series-or-companions, suicide, young-adult

My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars

Description via Goodreads:

Once you've seen into the future, can you change your destiny?

In a near future, society is segregated according to whether people are genetically disposed to mental illness. 17-year-old Ana has been living the privileged life of a Pure due to an error in her DNA test. When the authorities find out, she faces banishment from her safe Community, a fate only thwarted by the fact that she has already been promised to Pure-boy Jasper Taurell.

Jasper is from a rich and influential family and despite Ana’s condition, wants to be with her. The authorities grant Ana a tentative reprieve. If she is joined to Jasper before her 18th birthday, she may stay in the Community until her illness manifests. But if Jasper changes his mind, she will be cast out among the Crazies. As Ana’s joining ceremony and her birthday loom closer, she dares to hope she will be saved from the horror of the City and live a ‘normal’ life. But then Jasper disappears.

Led to believe Jasper has been taken by a strange sect the authorities will not intefere with, Ana sneaks out of her well-guarded Community to find him herself. Her search takes her through the underbelly of society and into the pits of the human soul. And as she delves deeper into the mystery of Jasper's abduction she uncovers some devastating truths that destroy everything she has grown up to believe, but she also learns to love as she has never loved before

Click here to purchase the book with

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My thanks go to Faber and Faber for sending me this book in exchange for an honest review.

The Glimpse is a book that combines two things that really grab my interest - dystopian society and mental health issues. I was so excited to get my hands on a copy of a story that combines the two, but I did have my reservations at the same time. Thankfully, I didn't find myself offended by the mixture of the two and I did enjoy this book. 

This book is bound to be controversial, especially if you're easily offended. One in four of us have some sort of experience with mental illness, so it's likely that a lot of people could be offended by the contents of this book. If you're able to sit back, relax and get it into your head that this is fiction, it's not real and it's meant to be dramatic,  then you should be able to enjoy this one. If I was living in the book, I'd firmly fit in the 'Big3' what with having two of the conditions, and so I'd be classed as one of the full-on Crazies(!) but I am in no way offended by that. I understand and respect that some people aren't as open as I am, but hopefully people won't take this book too seriously. I think the story is actually really good at showing people that all of us have emotions and sometimes people do feel the need to hide them or suppress them. I think that there is a message in this book for the reader to interpret. 

The Glimpse features a society where people are categorised into two categories - 'Pures' who don't have a predisposition for mental illness and those who do have a predisposition, the 'Crazies. There is a test for the 'Big3' - anxiety, depression and schizophrenia, three very intense mental illnesses. Those who pass the test get to go on living comfortable lives and those who don't are separated, excluded and live a poor, tough, rough lifestyle. The story focuses around a girl called  Ana who has lived her whole life as a Pure, but found out that actually, she does have a predisposition for illness and so is in fact one of the Crazies.

We follow the story of Ana as she discovers her true past, the tragic history of her family and has to come to terms with who she really is. She is still the same person, but if the society found out, she would never live in the same way again. I think Ana actually took the discovery quite well and I did warm to her - I thought she was quite a good character and although I don't love her yet, I could see myself liking her even more as the story progresses. She seemed realistic to me, and thats why I liked her. She wasn't weak, but she wasn't overly brave. I found her to be an enjoyable character to read about.

On top of having to deal with the fact that she could have her comfortable lifestyle taken away from her, her partner, Jasper, goes missing and is supposedly abducted. Unfortunately, this is the part of the book that started to confuse me! I admit that it's not hard to confuse me, but it took me quite a while to trudge through parts of this book as I had to keep checking back on things to see what was going on. A lot of 'facts' are changed/revealed throughout the story and I felt that sometimes we were being given too many different things to try and remember. I know that a lot of people do enjoy that though, and it did seem to be well done, it was just a bit too overwhelming for me - especially the sections about The Enlightenment Project.  

Ana meets a lot of people when she is trying to find where Jasper has disappeared to and the story starts to get pretty exciting! I really loved venturing into the (somewhat) unknown with Ana and meeting all of these new, different people in their very different situation. We are introduced first to Lila, sister of Nate and Cole. I absolutely loved Lila - she seemed fun, quite confident and very loyal. Whilst I didn't particularly like Nate or Cole at the beginning, I definitely grew to understand what they were about and I did warm to them. There is definitely something mysterious behind this family that we are only starting to get to know. I found the action at the end of the book to be quite scary, but also the high point of the story for me!

Overall, although I was confused for quite a bit of this book which made it a bit difficult/slow to get through, I did enjoy it and the mystery behind it. As I've said, it is controversial and I understand and respect that some people won't be comfortable with how mental illness is portrayed, which is understandable. If you're able to just accept that this is fiction and are mature enough to understand that people with mental health issues aren't 'Crazies', then try and enjoy this new Dystopian read. I will certainly want to follow on and see what happens next!