One Star Review of the Afterlife by K.L. Hallam

Something a little different.
It's not a YA or MG fiction. I found this today and had a laugh.

 One Star Review of the Afterlife. 

The crack of a windshield, cold damp leaves. Lights. Rolling wheels.

Someone whispers, “You’re going to be Okay.”

Who the hell is that?  Sure doesn’t sound like Arthur?

Up and down, my back arches. There’s no air. Blinking lights, aren’t they pretty, following like pearls on a string?

Up, up and away. 

I open my eyes.

Where am I now? No one is around. Then someone pushes past me—hey! I shout. Don’t be so rude. But they don’t hear me.

“Are you going up or down?”  A string of lights waves behind the blob without a face.

Where is Arthur?

I turn where the lights trail and catch a glimpse of my surroundings. Blank white.

“Mrs. Joan Ruckwin, please come forward.” I hear in the opposite direction.

There’s no one anywhere near me-–except that voice, a cavernous, reverberating voice, telling me to come forward. But there’s no forward. And where is back?

 I spin until I’m a dancer on the top of a music box and stop.  

 “Mrs. Joan Ruckwin, there may have been a mistake?” It’s not a God it’s the voice of my fifth-grade math teacher addressing me.

“What do you mean?” I ask.  “Where am I?” I don’t see anything. “A mistake?” Arthur? He was in the car with me. He’s not here.  He must be alive. “You’re right, there’s been a huge mistake. I don’t belong here. I belong with my husband and he needs me.”

“Everything’s transparent,” my fifth-grade teacher answers.

“Well, get me down. I want off.”

“Look inside this,” I’m told.

I see Arthur. Arthur is not in the hospital.  He’s laughing and having fun, with—with another woman?

I step back. “Why are you showing this to me? “

Suppose I suspected it.  We watch Arthur drinking bubbly with another woman.
I turn away. “I don’t need to see any more.”

“You still want to go back?”

“Wait, so this isn’t hell, cause it’s not too shabby.”

“A midway point before total departure.”

  

Before I have another thought, swirls of compression land me onto the table with Mr. Ruckwin, and his new, soon to be, Mrs. from what it appears, admiring her new ring.

“Oh, hello, dear. I know you weren’t expecting me."

The woman spits up wine. My dear husband coughs, gasping until it overtakes him, and into a frenzy; coughing and choking with no one to give them the Heimlich maneuver.  

Such a pity. 

-->

 written in 2015

Review: The Wood by Chelsea Bobulski

The Wood by Chelsea Bobulski
My rating: 5 of 5 stars


A repost from my review on The Kidliterati 

I  received this ARC in exchange for an honest review.




Do not travel on the paths.
Do not linger after dark.
Do not ignore the calling.

Sixteen-year-old, Winter, is a guardian of the wood, the same wood that took her father. She protects the travelers who pass through, making sure they return to their time period. Otherwise, the world could implode.

It’s a dangerous job. Winter works all day to ensure the travelers are guided back to their threshold. But, if she’s caught in the wood after sundown, the shadows, called Sentinels, rise; the icy cold follows their razor sharp teeth.

The wood is ill, black tar drips from the leaves, and it’s spreading. Travelers are found in bad shape, stricken to their core by the darkness of the wood and the poison and the shadows.

Winter isn’t alone. She worries about her mother, while her mother worries if she’ll return home each day, or if the wood has taken her. There’s Uncle Joe, who’s worked closely with her father, and more like brothers through the years as guardians of the wood. Uncle Joe watches over Winter. He wants to protect her where her father left off.

So when a boy passes through the wood from the 18th Century, a mortal, begging for help, who might know where her father is, she listens. Reluctant, at first, helping him goes against the most important rule of the guardians: No traveler can pass through a threshold into a time that is not their own.

Together, they set out to save the wood, and find his parents, Old Ones who disappeared that may know what’s happening to the wood and how to stop it. But the ancient one, Varo has returned, an outcast 500 years ago. Could he be darkening the wood, and using Dragon’s Bain, the one thing that could kill an immortal guardian?


A fun fantasy with a time-travel twist, a forest that comes alive with dark forces, magical benevolent fireflies, friendship, sacrifice, and a satisfying conclusion, make for an absorbing read. The action writing and the pace were effortless.

Recommended for readers 13 and up.
Release date: August 1, 2017 by Feiwel & Friends







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April is Poetry Month!

I've unearthed volumes of poetry since digging up old diaries for the YA novel I'm working on. Many of the poems are in (desperate) need of editing. I've wanted to share a few for awhile. But I was scared. The poems below were written in the 1990's.  

Alone

I always write when I feel alone,

Inside my mind, there is a home.

The stories or levels, the steps the stairs, an attic holds you unawares.

-->

What lurks inside those shadowy places? I never really see the faces.

***

-->

Creating through thought and creating despair. I see you with others and try not to compare. Maybe it was the words we said. Or the hopes we shared. This caused my head to believe you cared. Childish, I know in my head, but my heart will pretend, and go till the end.

***

If it’s silence we want why create tears? In the hearts of millions a thoroughfare of fears, collapse under wishes unreceived, no need for greed.

-->

Cast away the mask one wears to cover, the face of hate not shared by another.

***

Tear apart

Fixed ideas

That chain you

Keeps you

Behind

Your stranger

Facing up

To breathe

The danger

Insanity

Not forced

To linger

Not wrapped

Around

Your little finger

Leave me to the heights

Of wonder

I’ll move aside

The rocks

-->

I’m under.

YA Book Review: What I Lost by Alexandra Ballard

What I Lost by Alexandra Ballard
My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I received an ARC for an honest review. This is a repost from Kidliterati 




What I Lost is a compelling story about sixteen-year-old, Elizabeth, who has dropped 4 sizes in only a few months, lost a boyfriend, and struggles with an eating disorder against her better judgment. Pained by the sight of greasy, sticky, full-fat food, or the horror more than a morsel might touch her lips. Her struggle is painful, recognizable, and terribly real.

When Elizabeth’s parents bring her to Wallingfield, a treatment center for girls going through a similar struggle, we meet a host of characters, each desperately trying to survive their own eating disorder. It’s excruciating. You feel for each girl, and her story, as you discover the pain that brought them here.

Although Elizabeth doesn’t like being away from home, Wallingfield quickly becomes a refuge, a place of safety, while she wrestles with the idea of staying there for good or getting well enough to leave. The recovery rate is slim. She knows this. Her roommate Lexi leaves, inspiring Elizabeth to eat just enough to (hopefully) return to the comfort of her home. When mysterious packages arrive for Elizabeth, the girls convince her that she has a secret admirer. Surely, it’s her ex-boyfriend with the clues he’d sent. Had he forgiven her?

After treatment, and counseling, and a final heartbreaking confrontation with her mother, who has her own size-0 obsession, could Elizabeth be ready to leave Wallingfield? You walk each step as Elizabeth works to find herself and be more than the disorder.

Authentic, and heartbreaking, a must read for our girls -- and boys! WHAT I LOST is an important book for our times. I hope it empowers our girls to love their bodies in all their glorious shapes and sizes.
Expected publication: June 6th, 2017 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux


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