How How to Save a Life by Sara Zarr sucked me in

I have what I guess could be called a bad habit of skipping from one book to another. It's not necessarily because I don't like the one(s) I'm reading, but more that my curiosity about whatever's new compels me to start reading whatever catches my eye, to see if I must read it right away. And in the case of the new YA novel How to Save a Life by Sara Zarr (who's on a book tour), the answer is yes, I need to devour it ASAP. I got it for free from Amazon Vine in the mail today and am already totally engrossed. The story is told from alternating viewpoints, that of Jill, whose father has died ten months previously and her mother decides she wants to adopt a baby, and Mandy, who is pregnant and looking to give her child up for adoption. One of my favorite novels tackling pregnancy and motherhood (and, in that case, OCD) is Little Beauties by Kim Addonizio, which I'd like to reread. The way the three narrators in that story, including a fetus-turned-baby, collide and contradict and interact, is marvelous, but that's another post (been thinking about it, and mentally ill, possibly unreliable narrators and how fascinating they are after finishing excellent OCD young adult novel A Scary Scene in a Scary Movie by Matt Blackstone).



Someday maybe someone can teach me how to properly use Blogger and indent and make things look pretty like I can on Tumblr. Until then, my ham-handed clumsyblogging, alas. Speaking of this blog, I'm looking into revamping it (I know, it's forever overdue, but rent paying takes priority). Stay tuned! From How to Save a Life by Sara Zarr, from Mandy's POV, as she's riding on a train to meet Jill and her mom for the first time:

"Um, hey." He shifts his body so that he's sitting on his side, facing me and leaning close. "It's Peña, by the way. My last name. And I'm..." He laughs. Lines appear around the corners of his eyes, and there's tea on his breath and stubble on his chin. "This is stupid. I'm not really married. I just said that because I thought you were trying to hit on me or something, and it seemed kind of weird, because...well, then I thought obviously picking up some stranger is the last thing on your mind right now. And you're probably half my age, and most likely you have someone, anyway, given..." He gestures to my belly. "That."

This. This rolls inside me, stretches a limb. I touch where it moved and wonder if it can feel my hand there.

"I'm nineteen." Almost.

"There you go. That's exactly half. I'm thirty-eight." He sips form his cup. "So, how long before you're a mother?"

I smile. I'll never be a mother. "About a month, I think."

Alex scratches his stubble. "Most women I know can tell you to the minute."

"I'm different." Being so specific with dates is silly. No one measures a life in weeks and days. You measure it in years and by the things that happen to you, and when this life is a whole year, I won't be in it."

That passages was so bold to me; I'm fascinated by Mandy and what she's going through to deal with her pregnancy, how tough she sounds, even though I'm sure as the novel progresses (I'm on page 22), that toughness will have to crack a little. And the "This rolls inside me" line also was so powerful, and taught me more than that umpteen writing books strewn around my bags and my floor about what I want to learn how to do with my fiction.

Read this if you like Greek myths and YA: Sweet Venom by Tera Lynn Childs

Thank you to Amazon Vine for sending me Sweet Venom by Tera Lynn Childs (also available in a Kindle edition). Visit her blog for a chance to win a copy!



My review:

I've been a fan of all of Tera Lynn Childs' YA novels, and this new series delivers on its premise and more! Taking another cue from Greek myth, this time Medusa, she presents a new series featuring triplets Gretchen, Grace and Greer. Gretchen is an old hat at accessing her superpowers and fighting smelly monster all over San Francisco; she's tough, from her Kevlar wrist cuffs to the daggers she stores in her boots. Grace and Greer discover their powers and have to both make sense of them, and the danger they're in, and come to terms with no longer being "normal."

The dragons are colorful and creative, looking to anyone not able to see their true nature like regular people, but the girls can see the truly hideous outsides and their murderous intent. Childs once again makes mythology come alive as each sister uses what she knows, along with a little help from some special elders, to help her do her duty. There's also the requisite cute boys, or in Greer's case, a mock surfer stud; Greer's chapters are among the most fun, because she's got the most to lose.

This is a delightful start to a trilogy, and even though I remembered almost nothing about Medusa, I quickly learned about the myth (or, in Sweet Venom's world, the "myth" of the myth). I'm not really a gore lover, but the scenes where the girls have to use their literal sweet venom to attack are fun and the girl power here is not the Spice Girls kind, but the creative, ingenious, bonding kind. I'm looking forward the next installments in the series.