[Review] My Life Undecided by Jessica Brody

Title: My Life Undecided

Author: Jessica Brody

Publisher: Farrar, Straus, Giroux (June 7th, 2011)

My Life Undecided was a really cute, funny and relatable story which will have you laughing and squealing along with Brooklyn throughout her decision-making journey!

After reading The Karma Club, also by this author, I was looking forward to reading more from her because her books seemed to have very unique concepts. Fortunately, I wasn’t disappointed with My Life Undecided at all! Everyone has had difficulties making decisions in life, and most of us can relate to having made some really bad choices. As teenagers, decision-making is even harder because we feel like one wrong move will totally destroy our lives or something!

So why not ask an anonymous crowd of unbiased strangers to give their objective view? This is exactly what the protagonist, Brooklyn, has decided to do. After making some wrong choices, she ends up losing her parents’ trust, best friend, and social standing. This series of bad decisions leads Brooklyn to believe that she is incapable of wise judgement, and thus in a fit of inspiration, sets up a blog named “My Life Undecided”. Here, Brooklyn declares that every one of her decisions, whether tiny or huge, is now in the hands of the blogosphere-whatever option the virtual crowd votes for, she will follow. What started off as a desperate attempt to make the right decisions eventually develops into a life-changing experience for Brooklyn.

I loved the whole premise of this book! Blogging was weaved effortlessly into the story and I actually felt tempted for a moment to start a similar blog myself, LOL.  Brooklyn was someone I liked very much, simply because she reminded me a lot of my own inability to make decisions easily. Other than that, Brooklyn was also a funny, witty and snarky MC who started off as being overly-sarcastic and angst-ridden, but slowly evolved into a more mature and considerate person by the end of the book. It was enjoyable reading about how she had to follow whatever decision her blog voters chose even if she didn’t like it-the consequences were just hilarious!

What made this book even more endearing would be the romance. You have the popular, suave and charming guy on one hand, and on the other hand you have the underdog, who happens to be smart, responsible, kind, supportive and a debater (!!!) Although it was rather predictable who Brooklyn would choose in the end, I had fun reading about all the sweet moments and how she finally realises which guy is right for her. There was this heart-stopping scene in the bathroom when Brooklyn was playing Truth or Dare-let’s just say I nearly melted into a puddle reading that part, and it was by far my favourite in the book!

I loved the ending because it said a lot about Brooklyn’s character growth, and how the experience has shaped her as a person. It was adorable without being corny, meaningful without being preachy, and conclusive without being absolute. I’d recommend My Life Undecided to anyone looking for a sweet, light-hearted and comical read with a unique premise!

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[Review] Luminous by Dawn Metcalf

Title: Luminous

Author: Dawn Metcalf

Publisher: Dutton Childrens Books (July 7th, 2011)

As reality slips and time stands still, Consuela finds herself thrust into the world of the Flow. Removed from all she loves into this shifting world overlapping our own, Consuela quickly discovers she has the power to step out of her earthly skin and cloak herself in new ones-skins made from the world around her, crafted from water, fire, air. She is joined by other teens with extraordinary abilities, bound together to safeguard a world they can affect, but where they no longer belong.

When murder threatens to undo the Flow, the Watcher charges Consuela and elusive, attractive V to stop the killer. But the psychopath who threatens her new world may also hold the only key to Consuela's way home.

When I first heard of Luminous, I thought the plot stood out alot from your typical paranormal fare and immediately added it to my TBR list. The idea of shedding your skin to become part of the world around you sounded refreshing! I'm not sure about you, but personally I've had times when I wished I could become something else rather than plain old me, and what better way than to throw on a new skin of air or water or even flames like Consuela does? And who wouldn't want to have a pretty pearl-pink skeleton?!

I won't even try to summarise this book because, well, there were way too many things going on! I don't mean it with a negative connotation, and readers who appreciate complexity in a story will probably love Luminous to bits. One thing about this book would be that it keeps you on your toes guessing where the story was headed; there was no predictability at all and I constantly found myself wondering what was going to happen next! You also can't help but get swept up into the alternate universe of the Flow along with Consuela. Everything sounded really different from what we are used to here on Earth. In fact, everything in the world of Luminous is unique and allows your imagination to run freely, thanks to the very descriptive imagery and beautiful language. Many reviews of this book have stated how good Dawn Metcalf's writing was, and I must say they weren't exaggerating at all!

However, the complicated storyline also meant that I had difficulty trying to keep up with the plot. There were moments when I had to pause and backtrack because Luminous was pretty fast-paced and it was easy to miss out certain details if you weren't paying enough attention. By the time I finished half of Luminous, I was already feeling slightly lost with lots of questions in my head. The wonderful writing was probably what made me press on until I finished the book, though I was steadily getting more and more confused.

Characters wise, I thought the writer did a really good job in creating characters which YA readers may not be accustomed to. The other teens in the Flow had their own unique personalities and talents-I wish we had the opportunity to learn more about their individual stories and relationships with one another! Romance lovers will be glad to hear that there is a male character with a very cool name and ability, who has a pretty deep connection to Consuela. However, I personally couldn't get into the romance and it was mainly because of Consuela herself. She felt way too cardboard-like without much emotion, especially because the story was told in third-person narrative. Even towards the end, when Consuela supposedly felt more comfortable in her own skin, I still didn't feel like she had grown much from the beginning of the book. I couldn't connect much with her on an emotional level, which was really a pity!

Luminous had TONS of potential. It had great prose, interesting supporting characters, and I loved the concept of the Flow, but overall the story just kind of fell flat for me. Perhaps my expectations were too high, but I wanted more out of Luminous! Still, I would recommend this book to anyone looking for something more challenging, stimulating and different.

(P.S: Sorry for being MIA for so long! Life has been pretty busy thanks to school, and I was trying to catch up on my reading as well. Thanks for sticking with me :D)