Discussion: The Piper's Son by Melina Marchetta

The Piper's Son by Melina Marchetta
Release Date: March 1st, 2010
Publisher: Viking
Buy: Amazon | Book Depository

Goodreads Summary

The award-winning author of Finnikin of the Rock and Jellicoe Road pens a raw, compelling novel about a family's hard-won healing on the other side of trauma.

Award-winning author Melina Marchetta reopens the story of the group of friends from her acclaimed novel Saving Francesca - but five years have passed, and now it's Thomas Mackee who needs saving. After his favorite uncle was blown to bits on his way to work in a foreign city, Tom watched his family implode. He quit school and turned his back on his music and everyone that mattered, including the girl he can't forget. Shooting for oblivion, he's hit rock bottom, forced to live with his single, pregnant aunt, work at the Union pub with his former friends, and reckon with his grieving, alcoholic father. Tom's in no shape to mend what's broken. But what if no one else is either? An unflinching look at family, forgiveness, and the fierce inner workings of love and friendship, The Piper's Son redefines what it means to go home again.

Read along with Summer from Miss Fictional's World of YA books

A couple months ago, Summer finally jumped on the Marchetta train and seeing her read all these books by Marchetta reminded me of the fact that I had been putting off The Piper's Son for ages. Marchetta's books tend to be emotionally exhausting and I really didn't feel up to it on my own so I asked the wonderful Summer if she would be up for a buddy read. She said yes and we had the most fabulous time reading this awesome book. Today she'll be joining me for a discussion about the book (well technically we joined each other since this will be cross posted on her blog as well.)

Rashika: Ahhhh wasn’t this book AWESOME? I just want to hug it and cry.

Summer: I KNOW RIGHT! I really miss the Finch-Mackee family. :')

Rashika: Okay so I just want to start off by saying that doesn’t this remind you of On the Jellicoe Road? I mean what with a whole family being torn apart by a death it kind of does resemble the situation in Jellicoe. Maybe that’s why I am kind of on the edge about what to give this book. Jellicoe is way too close to my heart.

Summer: I'm still unsure if this was as wonderful as Jellicoe Road. My favorite part in Jellicoe was the flashbacks to give us a closer look into their family, but in the Piper's Son the story wasn't as heartbreaking as in Jellicoe. Wait, no, I don't want it to seem like I didn't like this, because I LOVED it, but maybe 0.05% less?

Rashika: Yeah the flashbacks were.. heartbreaking, I kept telling myself nothing bad was going to happen but it did and it broke my heart. That isn't to say this book didn't break my heart either. Marchetta enjoys shredding our hearts.

Rashika: There is so much heartbreak in this book. And half of the time it’s like there is this weight around your heart and it’s all you could do to not break down and cry for all of these characters.

Summer: That's the thing with Marchetta. She creates these characters that make you feel what they feel, it's this magical talent she has. So since most of this novel is  pretty sad, I couldn't hold in my tears. The hopelessness, the grief, the desperation, everything the characters felt, I felt.

Rashika: I’ll admit it. Tom and Tara’s story was not my favorite. In fact, I love Tom but at the same time he will never take Jimmy’s place in my heart. But Georgie and Sam. Their story. I cannot even. She explores something that a lot of people are touchy about, infidelity. There is so much anger and confusion between the two even 7 years later and why wouldn’t there be? Even with all that, they are having a child. At first I wanted her to lash out at Sam and get back at him for everything he had done but I realized that would be wrong, Sam is already miserable. Because for him to have his son, he lost the most important person in his life. He loves his son but he had to lose another person he loved to have him. Like Bill, who had to lose his best friend to gain a wonderful family, or Georgie who had to lose her brother for her to have the baby.

Summer: When I first met Sam, I wasn't the biggest fan of their relationship. Besides the fact that it wasn't the traditional first-love thing common in YA, I couldn't help but imagine him as a sort of antagonist. Then again, I kind of began to love him as the story progressed, just as Georgie's love for him was slowly being revived. This was a common quality for a lot of the characters; at first, I hated Sam and Bill, but as we got a closer look into their lives, we began to understand and empathize with them, which I think was Marchetta's goal.

Your point on how these characters had to lose someone to gain another is such a great and heartbreaking topic. The whole issue of loss in this book is so profound that I find myself tearing up just thinking about it. It creates conflicting feelings in these characters and in the reader as well because it makes us think, "If so-and-so hadn't died, would I have ever met this person?"

Rashika:   In the beginning I didn’t like Tom. I didn’t. The way he treated Georgie broke my heart. But as the author dwelled more into his story, you couldn’t help but fall in love with him. The boy who lost all his family. The boy who lost his hero. The boy who stayed behind to take care of a father who left him. But even with all that his story didn’t touch me nearly as much as Georgie’s did. Tom had friends who wanted to help him but he pushed them away. Georgie had no one, her mom left her to bring back her brother’s body. She had no one to turn to as she hit rock bottom, so she ended up turning to the very person who betrayed her. And it breaks my heart that she was busy taking care of everything when her own heart was breaking. There was no one who could stand by her side and comfort her because everyone was too busy dealing with their own grief.

Summer: I'll admit, Tom was an a-hole in this book. I don't remember him being that much of a jerk in Saving Francesca, but at the same time, I can't blame him. His life is tearing down before his eyes, and he can't cope with it. People have different ways of dealing with grief, so I guess he deals with it by ignoring his friends and putting on his facade of "I don't give a crap". Although, I agree with you that Georgie's story affected me so much more. She had to lift herself up, and at the same time trying to lift her loved ones up, and her immense strength really is commendable. I was disappointed that she had to turn to Sam for help, but I now know that he was and is perfect for her, as cheesy as that sounds.

Rashika: As someone who loves second chance romances, I actually enjoyed that part. I had no idea going into the book there would be one. Honestly the best thing about second chances are that they show that a relationship cannot be perfect. People make mistakes.

Summer: Exactly! And the thing is in this genre that the characters usually end up spending the rest of their lives with their “first love”, but really, how realistic is this? I love that Marchetta does not shy away from the harsh realities, and instead faces them head-on.

Summer: To Marchetta fans, I feel like it is kind of a big deal that she chose to go the third-person POV route instead of first-person POV. Small as a change it may seem, I'm still a bit unsure if this was the correct way to go. I'm used to reading their thoughts from one perspective, but now we get a more broader look into their world. I like it, but at the same time I miss the first person just like Jellicoe, Saving Francesca, and Looking for Alibrandi.

Rashika: Seeing that I liked Georgie’s story better I was happy but I’ve heard that Jimmy’s story might have 4? Or was it 4 main characters. I am slightly confused about that. I am sitting here trying to decide how Marchetta’s books order on my mental list. Jellicoe is without a doubt my favorite but… seriously, I cannot decide. Alibrandi has a special spot because it’s different from the rest of her books (it isn’t nearly as depressing) and well, this woman is a genius, it’s kind of hard to decide which one of her books I prefer.

Summer: Gahh hopefully her new book with Jimmy will live up to our really high expectations, but I have no doubt she’ll blow us away (again).

Rashika: Yes. Jimmy was my favorite character in both books (even though he remained absent in this one). I look forward to reading his story :D Anyways THANK YOU for reading this with me Summer! It was reallyyy funn and I enjoyed fangirling over Jimmy with you (and I am laying my claim on him as well) :P

Summer: Samsies! And thank YOU so much! (actually he is mine :D)

(I decided there was no point in fighting with a delusional Summer :P Obviously she cannot see that Jimmy is mine but I won't burst her bubble).

Thanks for joining us guys!

ARC Review: The Devil's Reprise by Karina Halle

Title: The Devil's Reprise
Author: Karina Halle
Series: Devils #2
Release Date: October 29th, 2012
Publisher: Diversion Books
Buy:  -

Goodreads Summary

Given a second chance, music journalist Dawn Emerson and guitarist Sage Knightly are reunited, only to have their lives threatened again by a demonic bargain. The sequel to THE DEVIL’S METAL, from USA Today bestselling author Karina Halle.

When Dawn Emerson got the chance to go on tour with her favorite metal band, Hybrid, she thought she landed the writing gig of the century. But what started off as a dream for the budding music journalist quickly turned into a nightmare that she and guitarist Sage Knightly barely escaped alive.

Now, months after they went their separate ways, Sage invites Dawn to accompany him on his first solo tour across Europe and write about it for Creem Magazine. But like the last tour, nothing is as easy as it seems. Sage is a broken man on the path to self-destruction and Dawn isn’t sure if she’s the right person to save him. And aside from having to pick up the pieces of their burgeoning relationship, they have to negotiate the mysterious new photographer assigned to Dawn’s story, as well as vindictive promoters and demonic groupies they thought they’d never see again.

Because this time, it’s Dawn who made a deal with the devil and the only thing worse than having to uphold a bargain with the prince of darkness is not remembering how you’re supposed to pay it back.

It may be with their souls.

“Be careful what she wished for”

I honestly expected a lot more from this book. It was a pretty short read in general but so much more could have been done. I don’t mean to say that it was bad, it was a really fun read but I just wanted more.

This book is written in Dual POV and while that doesn’t always work out, it definitely worked in favor of this book. It made it a lot easier to enjoy the book and not only because we finally got to be inside of Sage’s mind. There were just times when it was so much easier to be in the other person’s head, for example, when Dawn went all jealous on me, I found it a relief to be in Sage’s head. Similarly when Sage went all douchebaggy on me, I preferred Dawn’s mind.

This time around it was Dawn who made ‘a mistake’ by making a deal with the devil, but she doesn’t even remember doing it. She still remains a pretty great female lead. She does have a few moments where I want to smack her but she pulled through in the end. I could say more about her but there isn’t much of a point because even though she is the one who made the deal, this was definitely Sage’s story.

“It should have been me.

But it wasn’t.

And the music played on”

Sage is basically a mess after the events of the last book. He is full of self-loathing and pain. He blames himself for what happened. He doesn’t think he should have survived. He just wants to be numb because he cannot live with himself half of the time. His best friend won’t talk to him and Noelle is a mess, and will probably remain that way for the rest of her life.

 At the beginning of the book he is a shell of a person, always drunk out of his mind and high on something. Sound familiar? No? That’s because he changed completely. Even music, the one thing he loved, doesn’t bring him the peace he needs. He is floating through life. And then Dawn comes back. Oh it takes him a while to actually see through his haze of self-hatred and man up, but when he does, it’s definitely worth it. It was great to see him come such long ways from the beginning of the book to where he was at the end of it.

He had some help of course, from his manager Jacob. It was actually refreshing to see how little he had changed. He obviously cared a great deal about Sage but you know, he has got to make his money. The show must go on even if lives are at stake. We did get to learn some about his past so that was nice.

There are new secondary characters as well, Max and Tricky. Tricky was mostly in the background and Max, well I don’t know what to say about him because honestly, I still don’t know how I feel about him.

I think the main reason this book didn’t work for me was because the magic of the first book came from the band and there wasn’t a band in this book. It was mostly a one man’s show. You didn’t get to see how the band interacted with each other and how despite all their issues they were really great people. I missed all of them so much.  

The book was definitely a whole lot creepier this time around. Which made it so much more exciting. The plot was well paced and like I mentioned before, the book was a quick read. I was sad to see it end so soon.

I have to admit though; I did NOT like the epilogue. It just seemed so unnecessary and cheesy in some ways. The book could have definitely done without it.

On the whole this was a pretty decent sequel. You could tell that Karina had actually planned the whole thing out instead of just writing a sequel just for the sake of it. 

Review: The Devil's Metal by Karina Halle

Title: The Devil's Metal
Author: Karina Halle
Series: Devils #1
Release Date: September 21st, 2012
Publisher: Diversion Books
Buy:  Amazon | BookDepository

Goodreads Summary

It’s the summer of 1974 and 21-year old Dawn Emerson has only three things she wants to do: compete one last time in the Ellensburg Rodeo, win back her ex-boyfriend Ryan, and become the best damn music journalist at Central Washington University. But all her plans are left in the dust when she’s contacted by Creem magazine to go on the road with one of her favorite groups, the up-and-coming metal band, Hybrid.

At first the assignment reads like a dream come true. Not only will Dawn land some much-needed credibility as a female music journalist, but she’ll finally get to experience life from the other side of the stage, and maybe crack the drunken, enigmatic code that is guitarist Sage Knightly. Instead, Dawn finds herself on an aging tour bus filled with ego-maniacs, band politics and a whole lot of sex, drugs and rock n’ roll. When monsters start showing up in dressing rooms and some of Sage’s groupies become increasingly strange and dangerous, Dawn discovers the band is not only going places – they’re going straight to Hell.

And Dawn has a backstage pass.

My luck with books involving rock stars/bands has been shit so the only reason I even read this was because it was by Halle. If anyone could pull it off it would be Karina. And I wasn’t wrong. 

Karina has this special knack for originality. She takes ‘common ideas’ and works her magic on them and they come out full of awesome. 

I actually thought the fact that this book was set in the 70’s would have been a setback for me as a reader but it turned out to be one of things I loved most about the book. It made it feel even more real and gave it a whole other atmosphere.

Dawn is a small town girl. She loves music. She is a music journalist but because she is a female most people don’t give her much credit. She hasn’t had a breakthrough in months until she is offered a job to write a piece on Hybrid, one of her favorite bands. 

Let me start off by saying that the part about her ex -boyfriend has no relevance what so ever. He is only mentioned and that too in the beginning. 

Getting back to Dawn, I loved being in her head. I couldn’t help but relate to her, from the parts about being disappointed to the whole ‘reviewing process’ and even her nerves about doing the whole thing. She was a great main character. She makes mistakes but she is so strong. Even with all her excitement about being with the band, she isn’t so star struck to pick up on their faults but even then she accepts them because well, they are only human (…. :P :P :P if you’ve read the book you’ll get what I am making tongue faces about). 

Sage, well, we don’t really know much about him seeing that he is so secretive but as he and Dawn get closer you get to learn quite a bit about. While I liked him, I didn’t really love him until the ending and it wasn’t because we finally got the whole picture about him. It was because of what he did, that truthful moment because if he had said something other than what he had it wouldn’t have worked. Karina knows that too. So she did justice to his character by making it end the way it did. I actually cannot wait to read the next book and be in his head and see how things turn around with him.

The band was so FUN to read about. Their interactions with each other, their interactions with Dawn. EVERYTHING. I loved getting to know them better. Seeing their faults and weaknesses. My favorite one out of all of them was Bob, yes he wasn’t a band member but I cannot help but adore him. He is so cool! 

Jacob, however, was the most interesting of the lot, even more so than Graham. He was the one character who you couldn’t quite pinpoint. What were his motives? Was he the good or bad guy? It wasn’t until the end when you actually got a little insight into his character.

The plot was pretty amazing. It was pretty fast, I found myself worrying the book would end too soon, which it did. I will however admit to expecting more in the ‘creepy’ area from this book because compared to the creepiness level of her EIT series, this was nothing.

I cannot wait to read the sequel and even my short wait for about a week seems too long. 

READ THIS PEOPLE.

Dirty Little Secret by Jennifer Echols

Title: Dirty Little Secret
Author: Jennifer Echols
Publisher: MTV Books
Release Date: July 16, 2013
Pre-order: Amazon

Goodreads Summary

Bailey wasn’t always a wild child and the black sheep of her family. She used to play fiddle and tour the music circuit with her sister, Julie, who sang and played guitar. That ended when country music execs swooped in and signed Julie to a solo deal. Never mind that Julie and Bailey were a duet, or that Bailey was their songwriter. The music scouts wanted only Julie, and their parents were content to sit by and let her fulfill her dreams while Bailey’s were hushed away.

Bailey has tried to numb the pain and disappointment over what could have been. And as Julie’s debut album is set to hit the charts, her parents get fed up with Bailey’s antics and ship her off to granddad’s house in Nashville. Playing fiddle in washed-up tribute groups at the mall, Bailey meets Sam, a handsome and oh-so-persuasive guitarist with his own band. He knows Bailey’s fiddle playing is just the thing his band needs to break into the industry. But this life has broken Bailey’s heart once before. She isn’t sure she’s ready to let Sam take her there again…

I didn’t enjoy this book but I cannot bring myself to give it a 1 star rating. Jennifer Echols always has these great ideas but she goes off in directions that I, as a reader do NOT want her to go in.

I really liked the idea of this book but I felt as though the author could have headed in a whole other direction with this that would have made this book a lot more enjoyable for me.

I think the thing that annoyed me most about this book was the main character. I hate how she has no pride. She is a teenager but all she can do is be self-deprecating. She is always looking down on herself. I don’t have a particularly high self-esteem but I don’t think I could view myself in the same light as she views herself in. She is always blaming herself for what happened yet I don’t think that would have been the appropriate response. She is a teenager (I mean she was 17 when this happened) and teenagers tend to be pretty angsty, she should have been more angry. We don’t see ANY anger on her side and here all I felt throughout the book was anger. She claims to be bitter yet she goes on about how her SISTER won’t talk to her and calls her every night hoping she will pick up.

She goes through the whole ‘rebelling’ phase yet she is still confined by what her parents expect her to do. She just seemed completely unrealistic to me.

This brings me to the next thing that bothered me, her parents. I hated her parents with the intensity of a thousand suns. They were awful. I cannot imagine any parent that would treat their child like that. I understand neglect but abandoning her, I don’t understand that.  They chose one daughter over the other and told the other to give up her dreams which THEY implanted into her. The irony is not lost on me. On top of that they also threatened to take away her college tuition if she did anything to mess things up for her sister. That just really pissed me off. What parents (in a fairly normal family) would want to take everything away from their child? Unless of course they want their kid to have absolutely no respect for them, which of course isn’t Bailey’s reaction to her parents destroying her life, what she does is accept everything they throw at her and whine about it. They apparently hate her for something that happened a year ago (although I don’t know what other reaction they expected her to have, plus it was an accident) yet I think the situation should have been reversed, with her hating their guts and giving them all the grief she could.

What is worse is that this wasn’t the ‘bad’ parent-child relationship; Sam’s dad was pretty bad as well. The author attempts to put a good spin on him later in the book but it just seemed false to me after seeing how much Sam despised his father.

What is up with bad parents in YA these days? Let me tell you, bad parents do NOT make a character more relatable, most parents are pretty cool. They do not try to sabotage their kids’ lives.

The only ‘good’ parent-child relationship was the one between Sam and his mother but since that wasn’t really explored I don’t have much to say about it.

Now about this sister I’ve mentioned a couple of times. She got a deal with a recording company while her older sister didn’t. The two used to be a duo and did everything together, so I do view Julie as ‘evil’. In my opinion, if she loved her sister she wouldn’t have signed the deal. It’s as simple as that. They’ve done everything together so why should she get the chance to complete her dreams while her sister doesn’t? Isn’t that kind of selfish of her? The author attempts to put a good spin on Julie in the end where she states that her reason for not answering her sister’s calls was a way to help her. Uh yeah sure. Not buying that. Julie=evil. End of story. (I am sure other people will disagree but you know.. it’s my opinion.. muhahaha)

This brings me to Sam and Bailey’s relationship. There were insta-love vibes all over the place and on the 4th day of knowing him, Bailey claimed to be in love with him. Unfortunately I was actually relieved about this one, after reading Hidden I was so glad she didn’t fall in love within a day of knowing him.

Sam is a complicated character, I don’t hate him but I would have definitely loved him had he not been a love interest.

He does some things that put him into the ‘asshole’ category but they don’t make me hate him because they just show that he is ambitious. Also he did indirectly say he would do anything to get to where he wants to be.

What I didn’t like about the things he did was Bailey’s reaction to them. Instead of feeling anger towards him like she should have, she felt guilty. On top of that, when she found out he manipulated her, she still wanted him. I barely saw a smidge of anger. In the end she was the one trying to fix things between them when he should have been the one groveling. Groveling aside, I still don’t even understand how Sam came around.

This book had so much potential and when I started this book I had been hoping that she wouldn’t have put up against everything her parents were doing to her. What I wanted was for this book to be about a girl who makes it to the top the hard way, meeting people who aren’t wonderful (like Sam) and having to put up with them so that she could achieve her goal.

In the end she does make one good decision when she decides to not put up with her parents’ shit but the way she stands up for herself is not what I wanted.

I am sure many people will enjoy this book but it seems like it just wasn’t for me.