Windwhyst by Christine O'Neill

Windwhyst by Christine O'Neill

Release Date: September 7, 2009

Publisher: CreateSpace

Age Group: Young Adult

Pages: 316

Overall:

I’m not usually one to read self-published titles, but the premise of Windwhyst was interesting enough for me to ignore its self-published status and give it s a shot. And I’m really glad I did.

Cole Anderson is your usual high school slacker. He’s a graffiti artist, failing his classes, being pretty invisible in school, and has the sarcastic attitude to match. But when he’s caught for defacing school property, Cole is told he must join the restoration team at the abandoned 19th century Windwhyst mansion. He’s joined in that project by his domineering tutor, Thea.

Thea Wallace is your stereotypical teen movie style overachiever. She’s, as Cole puts it, “President of This and That and Your Mom Club” (Windwhyst, page 7). So of course she’s involved in just about anything and everything that can be put on a college transcript, and anything that will help her succeed, while everything else like friends, is just a formality.

While working at Windwhyst, the two stumble upon a hidden room full of treasures. As they are browsing those treasures, they find Augusta and Josiah Lyons, brother and sister and that have been dead for upwards of 250 years. After meeting the Lyons’ and getting over the idea that ghosts don’t exist, they find that the ghosts aren’t something to be feared, but are people too.

After talking to the Lyons’, Thea and Cole are approached by PELF, a horror movie-esque company that wants to meet with the ghosts and study them. Thea and Cole come to find that PELF isn’t at all what they seem and is actually much more dangerous and deadly. PELF is the kind of company that would give Norman Bates a run for his money in the creep factor.

With the help of a third, ex-military ghost, the friends set out to defend the world and the lives they all cherish. Now they’re all thrown into a world of murder, history, love, war, laboratories, experiments, and PELF.

Now there is more at stake for Cole than he ever thought possible. He’s faced with difficult decisions in terms of love, life, and the survival of not only himself, but also of Thea and the ghosts. And the project Cole was forced into has now played a bigger role in his life than he ever thought possible.

I actually really liked this story. I adored the characters…at least most of them, and thought they were extremely well developed. Cole and Thea had this very amusing love-hate, push-pull relationship. They’re polar opposites and it totally works for them. The ghosts are very intriguing, they’re full of history and life; even if they’re not actually living per say.

I found the involvement of PELF and its employees to be a totally different twist on a typical ghost story. It made things dangerous and adventurous for our protagonists, and exciting for the reader. Plus with Cole as the narrator, it gave a nice change to the normality of having a female voice, and a different spin on the issues and conversations they all had.

I did find a few grammar and spelling mistakes here and there and while that kind of irked me a bit at the moment, there weren’t enough to take away from the story or to be a big enough distraction. And I have found that it’s fairly common to find some in a self-published novel. Also while reading this story I did come to find a few awesome facts, such as the author, Christine O’Neill, is not only sixteen years old, but Windwhyst was also her NaNoWriMo novel! Now how cool is that?

Personally, if I had seen this book in the bookstore, I probably would have skipped right over it based on the cover alone, but I'm glad I didn't. While the image makes me think of the Windwhyst mansion and I think it's cool that the author took the photo, I wouldn't have used it as a cover. I don't really think it fits the nature of the story, and unlike the story it contains, the cover is a bit blah.

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I received this book for review for Teens Read Too.

Dear Big V by Ellen W. Leroe

Dear Big V by Ellen W. Leroe

Release Date: September 30, 2009

Publisher: WestSide Books

Age Group: Young Adult

Pages: 200

Overall:

When you look up the definition of “prude” in the dictionary, there are no words to define it, there’s only a picture of Courtney Condon. Courtney is the epitome of a good girl, she’s modest, and she’s the founder of Donuts and Coffee, the schools abstinence club. On top of all of that, she is also the only one in the school that can resist the charms of Lance Lindsey, the most gorgeous guy in school and the school’s total player.

Lance is THAT guy, you know the one, we all know the one. He’s gorgeous, charming, has a new girl every week, and thinks he can have anyone he wants. He’s the kind of guy that you think is so gorgeous, but wouldn’t want to even shake hands with without wearing a hazmat suit. But none the less, he is a fairly realistic character, aside from the “when he walks into a room, everybody stares” mentality, that is something that I’ve never seen happen in all my almost 21 years.

Courtney and Lance are thrown together to do the coveted Op-Ed piece for the school newspaper, and this fact amuses Lance and infuriates Courtney. They have this very Cate and Baze (Life Unexpected, new show on CW) kind of relationship going on and it’s pretty hilarious. Now it’s time to see what happens when the Queen of the Prudes and King of the Lewds is thrown together, and with the single-mindedly religious mother that Courtney has, anything is bound to happen.

I really wanted to like this book more. Dear Big V is cute and funny, and the author was able to address sex and abstinence without being preachy and clinical. But overall the book left me feeling…meh. I expected more from it, there was quite a bit of different things thrown into the story and instead of giving them all time to develop and finish well, they were all rushed into the last few chapters, which left me feeling unsatisfied.

Courtney is funny and mildly adorable, but then there were moments (mainly in the beginning) where I just couldn’t stand her. I found her judgmental and close-minded and I couldn’t connect with her, but as she started to grow, I did like her more but I still never fully connected with her. The one character I did adore was Andy, Courtney’s best friend, while she stands for her beliefs, she’s accepting of other people’s thoughts and feelings, plus she’s really funny.

One of my biggest issues with Courtney is that after a few kisses and literally only a few very brief conversations with Lance, she was telling her best friend that she thinks she’s falling in love with him. I know that in high school and being that age makes you think simple physical attraction can be love without really knowing someone, but that was just a bit much, and very unrealistic. I found it hard to believe that a character like Courtney could confuse love and lust so easily.

Maybe if I was younger and still dealing with the same issues as Courtney, I would have responded better, or maybe with the lack of connection I felt with the characters themselves, I wouldn’t have. There’s no way to really know. I do think that younger readers could benefit from Courtney’s plight; I would love for my niece to read this and maybe save her some heartache later down the road. I think it’s a good book for a look on abstinence, it doesn’t come of clinical and preachy like most others do, and for that alone, I do think readers will respond better. Maybe others will love Dear Big V, but it just wasn’t something I related to.

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I received this book as part of Around the World Tours.