The Serpent King - Jeff Zentner

Title: The Serpent King
Author: Jeff Zentner
Pages: 384
Publisher: Crown Books for Young Readers
Source: Netgalley
Goodreads rating: 


About: Dill has had to wrestle with vipers his whole life—at home, as the only son of a Pentecostal minister who urges him to handle poisonous rattlesnakes, and at school, where he faces down bullies who target him for his father’s extreme faith and very public fall from grace.
He and his fellow outcast friends must try to make it through their senior year of high school without letting the small-town culture destroy their creative spirits and sense of self. Graduation will lead to new beginnings for Lydia, whose edgy fashion blog is her ticket out of their rural Tennessee town. And Travis is content where he is thanks to his obsession with an epic book series and the fangirl turning his reality into real-life fantasy.
Their diverging paths could mean the end of their friendship. But not before Dill confronts his dark legacy to attempt to find a way into the light of a future worth living.

This is one of those times that I'm so thankful for the book blogging community because this is a book that I would have passed right on by.  Like, the cover is gorgeous, but wouldn't grab my eye by itself.  Same with the description.  I read this solely because of Jamie's post over at The Perpetual Page-Turner so a big thank you to her.

This book talks about life in a way that is so real you come away feeling like you actually know these characters in real life.  Dill, Lydia, and Travis are from a small town in the South.  And not the idyllic, porch-sitting, sweet tea drinking South.  More like the 'how am I ever going to get out of this town' South.  It's truly a bummer of a town and these three are your teenage misfits.  People at school make fun of them a lot.  Lydia's really good with the comebacks, Travis just lets it all roll off his back, but Dill's got it tough - his dad's in jail and his mom's not really supportive of him (and kind of blames him for his dad being gone.  SO shitty.)  He absorbs all of the shit that gets thrown his way.  He's also mega talented with the guitar.  He started playing for his dad's church, but now he's started writing secular music and it's really good.

I was immediately enamored with Lydia.  She's so cool - running a very successful vintage fashion blog called Dollywould (brilliant), she recognizes that this is not where she needs to be and is trying to go to school in New York.  Lydia has a few more advantages in life than Travis and Dill, being as her parents are pretty well off and very supportive of her and her dreams.  Dill's definitely in love with her, but she's determined to get out of their small-minded town and never look back.  One of the strengths of this book is that it recognizes that getting yourself out also means leaving behind, no matter how much you'd rather not.  Sometimes there's no other choice.

I love that Lydia wants more for Dill than he wants for himself.  It has to be so frustrating for her.  He has let this town and his parents box him in so far that he can't even see a way out.  I also love Lydia's assessment of Travis, that he is fine staying in town forever because he adventures in his imagination with his books.

I don't really want to go any deeper into plot stuff because you're going to want to let this story unfold on its own.  This book is struggles and loss and feeling trapped by circumstance.  It's also hope and perseverance and discovery.  It is everything everyone has said it is and more.  Please please please if you're on the fence about this one pick it up.  If it doesn't sound appealing to you, give it a chance anyway.  You won't be sorry.

Firsts - Laurie Elizabeth Flynn

Title: Firsts

Author: Laurie Elizabeth Flynn

Pages: 320

Publisher: St. Martin’s Griffin

Source: Netgalley

Goodreads rating: 

About: Seventeen-year-old Mercedes Ayres has an open-door policy when it comes to her bedroom, but only if the guy fulfills a specific criteria: he has to be a virgin. Mercedes lets the boys get their awkward, fumbling first times over with, and all she asks in return is that they give their girlfriends the perfect first time- the kind Mercedes never had herself.

Keeping what goes on in her bedroom a secret has been easy- so far. Her absentee mother isn’t home nearly enough to know about Mercedes’ extracurricular activities, and her uber-religious best friend, Angela, won’t even say the word “sex” until she gets married. But Mercedes doesn’t bank on Angela’s boyfriend finding out about her services and wanting a turn- or on Zach, who likes her for who she is instead of what she can do in bed.
When Mercedes’ perfect system falls apart, she has to find a way to salvage her reputation and figure out where her heart really belongs in the process. Funny, smart, and true-to-life, FIRSTS is a one-of-a-kind young adult novel about growing up.

I’m going to say it right up front, Firsts made me feel like an old.  Which I am, so, I mean, that’s fine.  It’s just that not much really makes me feel that way.  I consider myself a connoisseur of teen media (all mediums- from movies and TV shows to books and music) and when something makes me sit up and count my actual years I take notice.  I really liked it, as you can tell from my Goodreads rating, but it sort of made me uncomfortable?  Like, at the start, Mercedes is very confident in what she’s doing and very sure that she’s in the right.  She definitely acts older than she is, projecting a maturity and behaving in a way that is a little unsettling to me, a self-confessed old.

Firsts is a different ‘first time’ story than we usually see in the YA world.  Mercedes had a bad experience for her first time, which isn’t explored in detail right away, and then starts devirginizing boys in service to their girlfriends.  She teaches these boys some moves and really just some basic ‘how-to treat a girl so she feels like she matters to you and you’re not just an a-hole trying to bang her’ things.  I like that we come into this story when Mercedes is done with this whole set up.  She’s helped 10 virgins, that was her cap, and she wants to move on.  Except that she doesn’t stop and everything starts spiraling out of her control.

I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop the whole time.  This arrangement is not a good one.  She was taking a whole lot on faith that these boys wouldn’t say anything to anyone just because they wouldn’t want their girlfriends to find out.  I’ll say it again – teenage boys not talking about sleeping with a hot girl for no reason except not wanting their girlfriend’s to find out.  I don’t have that much faith in teenagers.  If they don’t give a crap about actually having sex with someone who isn’t their girlfriend, I can’t imagine they would care about talking about it.

I think the stand out part of this book lies in its characters very complicated relationships with each other.  Mercedes and her mom don’t get along: her mom tries to be hip and young, while she craves a “normal mom.”  Angela and Mercedes are best friends, but Angela is totally in the dark about her best friend’s sexcapades and thinks she is a good little prayer groupie, just like her.  Mercedes feels drawn to Faye, the new girl in school, and can’t tell if she wants to be her or be with her.  Zack, her ‘Wednesday friend,’ the only boy she sleeps with for herself, wants an actual relationship, but Mercedes keeps him relegated to Wednesday fuck buddy.  I was really rooting for Zack the whole time.  He was such a good guy, but also really well developed.  He wasn’t just a doormat who was in love with Mercedes.  He kept putting himself out there, but he got hurt, he got angry, does some dumb things, and knows that he deserves better than being kept at arms length.

This book did a really good job of keeping Mercedes’s past hidden until exactly the right moment.  She has trauma in her past (that I’m not going to spoil here, it really keeps you invested), but it all brings her to where she is at the beginning of the book and what she’s doing.  You could feel something hanging over her, but Flynn does a really good job of playing the cards close, so the reveal is very satisfying.

I enjoyed this fresh take on the YA first time, even though it made me feel all of my years on this planet.  The characters were interesting and well written, and although I found parts of the plot hard to believe, it didn’t lessen my enjoyment of the story at all.  I love when YA pushes the perceived boundaries a bit (Shut Out by Kody Keplinger comes to mind) and I’m looking forward to seeing what Laurie Elizabeth Flynn comes out with next!