Thursday, May 12, 2016

{Blog Tour} How to Be Cool - Annie Carr (Review)

YA Bound Book Tours is organizing a Blog Tour for: How to Be Cool by Annie Carr. This tour will run from May 9th to 13th. Check out the tour schedule.
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How to Be Cool
by Annie Carr

Genre: YA Contemporary Fiction
Release Date: March 1st 2016
Cascade Press

Summary from Goodreads:

Ethan will never be as cool as his twin brother Alex. Alex is a star football player and president of the senior class, while Ethan was born with cerebral palsy and needs crutches to walk. 

Laura will never be as cool as her perfect older sister Nikki. Nikki is everything Laura isn't—confident and gorgeous… until one night when Nikki is brutally raped and hospitalized, and Laura finds comfort in her new friend Ethan. 

Together, Ethan and Laura realize maybe you don't need to be cool to be happy. Or to fall in love. 

And then a revelation about the attack shatters everything… 


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Review
This book is told from the point of view of three people.  Ethan who is the twin brother to Alex.  Ethan suffers from cerebral palsy and uses crutches to walk around.  Alex is the star who is class president along with football star. The book also is told by Laura who is slightly overweight senior whose sister ends up being brutally raped and beaten.  Laura had never had a boyfriend before when the book begins.  Ethan also never had a girlfriend before, but he did try and ask out one girl prior to asking out Laura. 

I think this story is very well told, I got completely sucked into the book and couldn't put it down.  The story of how both Ethan and Laura feel about their siblings is something I think a lot of people can relate too.  It is hard to have a sibling who is more attractive or outgoing and really affects you as a person.  Ethan and Laura are intimidated by their siblings and have a hard time communicating with them.   During the course of the book the relationship between all the siblings greatly changes.  The author did an amazing job describing all of the relationships and also bringing about change.

I loved the character development that the author did for all the characters.  Each character was going through a hardship and had issues.  The author broke open those issues for each of the characters and allowed them to grow throughout the entire book.   One of the issues covered is how others view you and how that affects your own opinion of yourself.  Since we got to see both Ethan's perspective of Laura and Laura's own view of her weight the reader can see how much Ethan really cared about Laura and how her weight was not an issue.  To feel comfortable in your own skin is sometimes challenging, but there is someone out there who is going to love you for your own skin.   

If there was one compliant on the book it was the ending, but that is me just wanting everything to end in a story book ending.  The author did a great job with the ending and making it very realistic and logical.  

I would suggest this more as a weekend book I got completely sucked in and couldn't put it down.  I wanted to know what was going to happen there is a little suspense that builds up in the middle about the rape and you want to find out what really happened.  This would also be a great vacation read it gives you a lot to think about.

I received a copy of this book from YA Bound Book Tours for an honest review.  This does not affect my opinion of the book.

My rating: 5/5

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YA Bound Book Tours


2 comments:

  1. I love a book about siblings! Although I like happy endings a lot too even though I know realistic is probably the better way to go. Great review!!

    ReplyDelete

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