Book Review: Scars Like Wings by Erin Stewart

Humans shouldn't have wings. Its brooms we have.

Everyone has scars. Some are just easier to see ...

16-year-old Ava Lee is heading back to school one year after a house fire left her severely disfigured. She’s used to the names, the stares, the discomfort, but there’s one name she hates most of all: Survivor. What do you call someone who didn’t mean to survive? Who sometimes wishes she hadn’t?

When she meets a fellow survivor named Piper at therapy, Ava begins to feel like she’s not facing the nightmare alone. Piper helps Ava reclaim the pieces of Ava Before the Fire, a normal girl who kissed boys and sang on stage. But Piper is fighting her own battle, and when Ava almost loses her best friend, she must decide if the new normal she’s chasing has more to do with the girl in the mirror — or the people by her side. 

This book starts a year after Ava survived a fire that killed her parents and sister cousin and after months of recovery, it's time she goes back to school instead of being homeschooled. Also time for a support group. Ava has suffered extreme face burns and does not look forward to leaving her house everyday.

With this topic, some Ableism is expected. Internal Ableism is something every Disabled person has to deal with at some point, But I did notice some by Ava that wasn't internal, both physically disabled characters mock mental disabilities. "Spastic" is used which I know that author being American; she might not know that term is offensive and it could be argued that Ava is being ableist against herself but that term is very specific so I think it probably should have been changed for the UK publication. Though, don't worry the term Selective Mutism was used as an insult and not capitalised correctly, so there went my goodwill to this book. This could have been used as a way of making the character unlikable, yet even then unchallenged Ableism is not the way to do it. If not familiar with Selective Mutism then you might not pick up on what a shitty thing this is to say. Maybe the author just doesn't that there is an anxiety disorder called Selective Mutism. Either way, it is a disorder and its not okay to use it that way. I get all the characters are the worst.  You don't need to use Ableism against other people to make a character unlikeable. Ableism is not acceptable in media unless its there to be challenged and it was not challenged.

This book does deal with Internal Ableism and with having burn survivers that makes sense. It's mostly Ava coming to grips with her new appearance and a touch on her loss of mobility. There also ableist related bullying and a mean girl thing going on. So I am Disabled, so I appreciated the emphasis on how bad inspiration porn is, but I did think some of the advice given by the supposed therapist was terrible. My Disability is invisible so I don't get questions unless I open that conversation but you do not owe anyone an explanation or time, about what you've went through. Kids are slightly different, but Adults should know better and you do not need to be a role model for them.

The characters are all unlikable,I mean I think Piper is meant to be the worst but so are lot of the character we're meant to like. Pipper could just be 16-year-old with bad coping mechanisms. But there are points that we are meant to be liking and relating to these characters and I still would happily throw them off a bridge or as the kids say Yeet them. Ava has a really shitty attitude about everything, some of it is understandable and she meant to develop away from it. It just this seems like always been this way, even before the fire. I think more time was needed for character-development.

All these characters have trauma so I feel sorry for them sometimes but they not real and I hate the one character who doesn't have trauma but that's awkward because he's also the only person of colour in this book. He's a "nice" guy who doesn't know shit about the thing he's trying to gatekeep you from. It being a traditionally feminine subject doesn't change that.

This is a friendship heavy book, which I do love, except its love triangle where no one likes each other. I thought this book was going to go in another way but it doesn't. Piper's friendship to Ava is both a good and bad thing at times, I would have liked to see that explored more. I thought they were going to be more self-reflection of each other problems, which they are but not dealt with. In favour, we have a pointless romance with a "Nice" guy. A lot relationships are introduced and we don't get to them which would have been a lot more interesting than the musical stuff. This book also has homophobia and no Queer characters so definitely not fun. New rule you don't get have homophobia in a book when you have no Queer characters. The benefit of the doubt is that making a statement about toxic masculinity which goes hand in hand with homophobia.

There's also a lot of awkward musical references, like pretending 'Annie' is a vague reference. There are three film adaptions and it been parodied several times. Basically, this book didn't get off on the best foot for me. It does get vaguer but the reaction to them both knowing 'Annie' made me hate both characters in that interaction.

There are lot of obvious plot things through the novel but can be somewhat forgiven being debut novel. It's there are a lot of them. You can really tell that certain things only happen for plot. The musical they doing is the Wizard of Oz, spoilers Ava gets the part of the good witch, who has a two-minute solo that can be sung by almost anyone. It's not a song that needs an amazing voice but it made out to be this amazing song. She sings 'Over the Rainbow' for her audition. When going for a specific part, you sing that song in auditions for the character. It makes no sense for her to sing that in re-auditions which are basically never a thing unless you barely have a chorus. They have an understudy for Dorthy which makes little sense, why not just have her play the good witch and get chorus girl to do the witch if anything happens. It's not a professional show, you're not going to have perfect casting. This is the Andrew Lloyd Webber version so there is a more difficult song for the good witch to sing. This whole thing makes no sense, it seems to take them weeks to host this audition despite knowing that they need to re-cast. Basically, Stewart wanted Ava not to audition but to still be in the show. I wasn't enjoying myself by this point so I'm over fixating on a thing that was a tool for having a shorter timeline but to show character growth.

The writing style was odd and confusing sometimes. Characters are often referred to as if they being introduced for the first time after their names have been established e.g. "the girl in the wheelchair". "The Boy in black." Its basic first person besides that.

Overall, I give this 2/5 stars for Skin Transplants. Nothing new with the Musical stuff (I'm literally listening to another book that has support group scenes and involves a too on the nose musical as well) or the Burn survival which is fine. There's also a lot of books about teenagers getting burnt in accidents and learning to deal with the physical and emotional trauma of that, so it just another one. As my lecturers used to tell me I'm really negative. I didn't like a lot of this book, it has potential but its ableist enough that I'm never gonna recommend it. More importantly, there was just a lot I didn't enjoy. Would I read Stewart again? Maybe. I'm just kinda done, causal ableism gets old quick and to find it in a book that's meant to be dealing with Ableism is not what I'm here for.

Read: 4/4/2020 to 12/4/2020
Reviewed: 12/4/2020 - 22/04/2020
Medium: E-arc
Published Date: 16th April 2020
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Children's UK
Source: Netgalley
CW: Homophobia, Ableism, Ableism slurs used (Spastic, Cripple), Death; Hospitals; surgery; alcoholic referenced; Bullying; Attempted Suicide; Drug use; Fire; Death of  Parents; Death of a Child; Grief; Car Crash mentioned;
Disclaimer: I got this book for free before it was published in the form of an E-arc for an honest review.

Book Review: Whiteout by Gabriel Dylan

Ski Trips: For the rich kids to die on.

Charlie hopes that the school ski trip will be the escape from his unhappy home life he so desperately needs. But there is something wrong with the remote ski village of Kaldgellan. Something is out there, something ancient and evil, among the pines and the deep untracked drifts, watching and waiting. 

And when the storms blow in, Charlie and his schoolmates wake to find the resort deserted. Cut off from the rest of the world far below, as night falls the few left alive on the snowbound mountain will wish they were somewhere, anywhere else. Only ski guide Hanna seems to know of Kaldgellan’s long-buried secrets, but whether Charlie can trust her is another question…


This is the second Red Eye book to featuring snow storms that cause isolation and with it having other similarities I couldn't help but compare them, especially as 'Fir' is one my favourite Red Eye books. I was pretty excited for this concept, as Teen "30 Days of Night" which oddly is one of the vampire films not mentioned in this.
                                                 
This book has third person narration that closely follows a few different people in the group. Charlie is the main character and gets a sort of romance. There are lot of characters at the start with this meant to be school trip, with thirty pupils so probably has two or three teachers with the group, so it's slightly confusing with all the girl names thrown around. We have other characters such as Tara who is the spoiled ex-rich girl; she is a terrible person, that's her deal and she only there to undermine everyone else. She meant to be the character you dislike the most, but guess who I dislike the most?That's right, Nico. My notes involve telling Nico to go die in the snow. Nico is your toxic geek stereotype with side of sexism. This sexism comes in his first introduction so that I was able to confirm that this quote made it to the finial book by using the Amazon Preview: "Ellie’s blue eyes were locked on to Stefan, a glint of admiration hovering there that gave Nico a twinge of envy. She was pretty, although he wondered if she’d be even more attractive without so much make up."

Yeah, Ellie is described as breaching her hair and wearing fake tan, and skiing with hooped earrings so is probably in that awkward phrase of make-up but it's makes me dislike Nico immediately because girls are judged for their make-up use even when it's fantastic. There's other comments by Nico through out the book make me dislike him for his toxic geek culture. I think these comments are meant to make him relatable but he just makes me think of those guys who quiz girls when they say they like Star Wars and deny that girl geeks exist. You can have shitty characters or flawed characters, but it doesn't add to the character or more importantly challenged. So with that sexist comment, I started counting how often the characters cry, 3:1 when comes to girls to boys. One of those times Tara cried for no reason and then never again. Maybe that was to show she was attention seeking. It's really minor thing, they are diverse side of girl characters so can just ignore Nico if you want.

Another thing to mention about Nico is that lot of his geek references feel slightly dated, I mean he plays World of Warcraft which isn't much of thing anymore. Also it's subscription based game, with it being £10 a month. It does have a free mode and these kids are on a ski trip so maybe they parents would pay that a month for game but it's seems more likely they would be messing about on Gary's Mod or Skyrim. I don't think MMORPG are much of thing anymore or I don't think any fantasy games really have online player mode. Films are mentioned as well but films can be randomly discovered that game with pay wall wouldn't. Though, no date is actually state. They have phones but are never described so I guess this could easily take place when I was a teen and not going on the sky trip where someone smuggled weed into several other countries. I don't think they went to Austria.

I love vampires, and was really excited to hear that a Red Eye book would be tackling them. They're done okay, somewhat old school with side of sort of original myth. The final conflict was decent and with Red Eyes being established as having no win situations sometimes the states were pretty high till the end.

Overall, I give this 4/5 stars for h. A lot of filler characters, but there's one character with strong motivation so that's fun. I guess I don't like the ending, it's not terrible but it meant to be a redemption for these characters that didn't feel earned for at least one of them well at least for me. . I get what their arc was meant to be, maybe it would have been better to focus on less characters for this story. I guess they all like 16 or something anyway. It's a decent horror story, in probably in the middle for me of the other Red Eye books which I have reviewed all of them.

I received e-arc of this book for free to do an honest review.

Book Review: Haunt Me by Liz Kessler

Reading books because they remind me of trashy "reality" tv shows.

Erin wants to face the future. 
Joe is desperate to remember his past.
Olly only ever lives for today.

When love weaves its dangerous magic around their lives, each of them face their own demons.

And as the past catches up with them, it comes down to the ultimate question...

Would you swap Love for Life itself?

I presumed this book was about ghosts, and luckily it was actual ghosts, not the mental ghosts of your past. Well, all the characters are meant to have those as well. This tries to deal with a lot of things including suicide, mental illness and drug abuse, none really that successful. This book feels very old school YA, mostly in the negative ways. It's okay, there was a point that annoyed me enough that I almost quit the book (chapter 10, anyone?) and then I remember that I choose to watch 'A Haunting'

So I should probably just let this stupidity go and I was only reading to fulfil my trashy need for terrible ghost stories, whether people claim they're real or not. My main problem, was that it very passive of the main character and was done to quickly move on the plot without thinking about the meaning or the why. I mean if this had been A Haunting episode then a demon would have suddenly appeared and that would be more entertaining. Do you know how hard it is to find someone to bless your house? Yeah, neither do I, but a day is just so quick.

Erin and Joe are soulmates because they write and have/had no friends. Their poetry is littered through the book, I'm not really a poetry person anymore but I definitely believe that the poems were written by two sixteen-year-olds, and maybe if I was sixteen too I would think they were great.

Erin is "not like other girls" so that's great. In her deference, she does not describe herself as that, but it's still a line in the book. It could be read that the other love interest Olly is just a dimwit who never dated anyone for their personality before. The book is told from the POV of the different angles of the love triangle: Erin the Sad Girl, Joe the Ghost and Olly the Alive Brother. I never felt deeply for anyone or anything, obviously only one of the romances is healthfully viable and even then I felt like it should have been a case where everyone moves on.

Erin had been in car accident in the past that took months of recovery but has no side effects of this and her injuries are never explained other than she had access to painkillers at one time. This would have happened four years ago during the main events of the novel, it's possible that she surfers no long term injuries or they won't effect till she is older but it would have been nice to see physical issues since so few books have physically disabled characters. It's nice that the psychological issues are acknowledged from suffering a traumatic incident like this, except it's very much for plot.

We have Mean Girl Zoe, Zoe that no one likes but is somehow popular. At least Zoe isn't just some flat sociopathic sadist stereotype that targets the main character for no reason and actually has some motivation for what she doing. She also described as being vain, obsessed with social media and image. So she is better than most stereotypical mean girls but she is still flat, plot driven character and still in lines with being a stereotype, just better than the other ones you can find.
Her actions at the end don't really make sense, unless she lied, but why would you want a rumour like that getting out about you.

Bullying and suicide are big theme in this book. I don't think they dealt with well, or terribly. They are used as plot. Erin is introduced immediately as having had a bad time which caused her family to move. Joe is this young guy who didn't seem to have any friends and wrote poems, so suicide did immediately spring to mind. I can't really comment on the impact of bully because I'm always like why do you care what dimwits think about you? I had people call me stupid names but it was very whatever, my nature means that unless it get physical or they get you into trouble it's hard for me to relate to characters that get so obsessed with it. The bit where its used for straight up plot I do take issue with. It's very sudden and lazy.

There is 26 chapters in this book. The POV changes within the chapters and the chapters just seem to end really randomly. Like the chapter will end but we're in the same scene and nothing dramatic will have happen to justify the chapter end. I'm not sure what the logic was behind this choice.

This is almost 400 pages and the plot is slow and steady and then at hyper-spreed twice in the book.
The ending was bit rushed, I feel like Erin would have had more defences up realistically meaning that ending didn't feel earned for me, even with it being established that she had past of doing what she did.

Overall, I give this book 3/5 stars for wallpaper. This is a books with tons of popular 00s tropes released in 2016. I wouldn't say it's harmful, but it's not a powerfully story and I doubt it will stay with me for long.