Author: Jennifer Echols
Date of Publication: July 10 2012
Pages: 325
Source: Mari- Epic Recs!

Heaven Beach, South Carolina, is anything but, if you live at the low-rent end of town. All her life, Leah Jones has been the grown-up in her family, while her mother moves from boyfriend to boyfriend, letting any available money slip out of her hands. At school, they may diss Leah as trash, but she’s the one who negotiates with the landlord when the rent’s not paid. At fourteen, she’s the one who gets a job at the nearby airstrip.

But there’s one way Leah can escape reality. Saving every penny she can, she begs quiet Mr. Hall, who runs an aerial banner-advertising business at the airstrip and also offers flight lessons, to take her up just once. Leaving the trailer park far beneath her and swooping out over the sea is a rush greater than anything she’s ever experienced, and when Mr. Hall offers to give her cut-rate flight lessons, she feels ready to touch the sky.

By the time she’s a high school senior, Leah has become a good enough pilot that Mr. Hall offers her a job flying a banner plane. It seems like a dream come true . . . but turns out to be just as fleeting as any dream. Mr. Hall dies suddenly, leaving everything he owned in the hands of his teenage sons: golden boy Alec and adrenaline junkie Grayson. And they’re determined to keep the banner planes flying.

Though Leah has crushed on Grayson for years, she’s leery of getting involved in what now seems like a doomed business—until Grayson betrays her by digging up her most damning secret. Holding it over her head, he forces her to fly for secret reasons of his own, reasons involving Alec. Now Leah finds herself drawn into a battle between brothers—and the consequences could be deadly.

Review:

I had heard wonderful things about Such a Rush for a long time. It was Mari who pushed me to read it as her Epic Recs for February. I went into the book having not read the synopsis, so I really had no idea what to expect beyond what other people kept telling me. Everyone said Such a Rush was amazing, and I guess I'm a little disappointed because it didn't really interest me all that much.

I don't often read contemporary romance but I have enjoyed a few... Dare You To comes to mind. I guess the thing that I require for the romances is for me to fall for the guy too. I don't feel like romances have super distinguishable plots (at least in my head) so to make it work, I have to adore the guy. I guess that never occurred in Such a Rush.

There's nothing wrong with Grayson. He is a good guy. He's just not a guy that I really connected with, and I don't know, I guess the story overall never really interested me.

Maybe it's my problem with romances, but really, did I for one second doubt what would happen? Such a Rush never surprised me and I hate guessing what happens. It wasn't unpredictable in the slightest, so as I was reading I knew the end result. That diminished my interest in the process because I didn't have that one character to grip my attention.

Then, the end was too easy. Everything gets resolved, everyone is happy, the girl gets the guy and they all live happily ever after. I guess when they were in conflict, I wondered how they would deal with it. But, the ending just felt weak to me because everyone almost instantly let go of their anger and I was left wondering where all this goodwill came from. The beginning before the spark dragged out, the foreplay was too short, and the ending was too fast.

I'm being overly picky right now, but that's because I was not invested in the story. Leah is a character I want to see succeed, but I didn't relate to her all that strongly. Plus, I'm a little irritated that everyone was either rich or poor. There were no middle-class characters, or even working class characters. The mean girls were mean for what seemed like no reason. There was an unnatural amount of douchebaggish guys.

I'm analyzing the story too much. Mari told me to just enjoy it, but I can't. It was a light story, and I guess normal teen contemporaries don't work with me unless they're emotional.

I will try to think of some positives to Such a Rush. The airplanes were cool. I admired Leah's passion for them. I also loved Leah's comfort with being herself. She was feisty and independent.

On another note, what in the world is the cover? It doesn't fit this book at all! The cover looks a little dystopian, maybe even paranormal while Such a Rush is totally light contemporary.

It took me a week to read Such a Rush and when I finished, I was excited because I could move on to another book. Full disclosure that this week I have an awful cold and I read the second half of Such a Rush with a headache. Maybe I psyched myself out of this book. Either way, it just isn't my type of read. 2 stars.

-P.E.

Author: Allie Brosh
Date of Publication: October 29, 2013
Pages: 371
Source: P.E. Epic Recs

This is a book I wrote. Because I wrote it, I had to figure out what to put on the back cover to explain what it is. I tried to write a long, third-person summary that would imply how great the book is and also sound vaguely authoritative--like maybe someone who isn’t me wrote it--but I soon discovered that I’m not sneaky enough to pull it off convincingly. So I decided to just make a list of things that are in the book:

Pictures
Words
Stories about things that happened to me
Stories about things that happened to other people because of me
Eight billion dollars*
Stories about dogs
The secret to eternal happiness*

*These are lies. Perhaps I have underestimated my sneakiness!

AMAZON / GOODREADS

Review:

I distantly remember P.E. shoving her phone in my face and telling me to read a blog post she read that really changed her outlook on things. I was curious but I was also lazy and in the end laziness won out. Who would have known that the same blog post that I had initially ignored would be published in a book and I would have another change to read it. And yes P.E., it was fantastic.

Hyperbole and a Half is quite different from my normal reads, not only is it non-fiction (gasp!) but it also has art; amazing art. I'm not a big non-fiction fan because I find that it's harder to connect with the characters, which I guess in non-fiction is usually the author. This outlook was quickly changed by Allie Brosh's witty stories and great writing style. I was quickly pulled into the colourful pages of Hyperbole and found myself laughing my guts out.

Hyperbole is quite different from other books, in that Allie has managed to weave in her own life along with comedy to keep the reader entertained. Reading about her reminded me of some of the crazy things I did as a kid and that made the experience even more special.

My favourite character award goes straight to Allie's dogs: the helper dog and the simple dog. They were hilarious and fantastic. I literally skipped pages to see how much further I had to read until it was another dog story.

While a lot of Hyperbole and Half was a compilation of hilarious moments in Allie's life there was also more connections to reality and I found that in the chapters about depression. It really brought me back to earth and taught me about something that I didn't know much about. Depression is quite horrifying especially if it can happen to such a seemingly happy person like Allie Brosh.

Hyperbole and a Half is not something I would've picked up on my own and so I'm very happy that P.E. introduced me to it. It's funny, witty, scary, realistic and yet unrealistic all at the same time. I read it more like an anthology and there were some stories that weren't as enjoyable so I can't give it the full 5 stars. But it was definitely a fun, quick read with great graphics!

-MARI

I ran across this feature from Paper Riot a few weeks ago and decided this was something I would love to do with Mari. Basically, I will be recommending a book to her, and she will do the same to me. For our challenge, we will be providing the books we recommend. By the end of the month, we have to read the other's book and share our thoughts on it.

P.E.'s Epic Rec

I really want everyone in the world to read this book. I'll settle with starting with Mari. I adored this book. It's one of my favourite books ever, and I really want everyone else to read it and love it too. I'm also incredibly curious to see Mari's reaction. (Aka, SHE BETTER LOVE IT.)

Mari's Epic Rec

I'm already getting nervous! It seems that P.E.'s books are lacking a little bit of romance/normal teenage life. So, I thought Such a Rush would be a great reintroduction to contemporary YA romance. This will be interesting as it's not something she would usually pick up. Either way, Jennifer Echols is one of my favourite authors and Such a Rush is one of her best works (according to moi). You better like it!

What do you think of our recs? 

- P.E. & Mari