Good, better, best - Out of the Easy by Ruta Sepetys

In out of the Easy Ruta Sepetys have created a wonderful set of characters. The characters never asked to be loved, but still they crawled under my skin, and as a result everyone of them will live on in my heart for years to come. It pains me to face the facts, these memorable characters aren't real. In their own way they feel so real and vibrant, colorful, fun and exiting to spend time with.

Caged? Spread your wings and fly away! I love this cover <3

Another time, another place

Come with me, take my hand and jump aboard my time capsule. We'll travel back in time, to the south, Louisiana, in the "French quarter" in New Orleans. When we are there I'll introduce you to Josie Moraine, she is just seventeen years old, but Josie is wise beyond her years. Growing up in the shadow of a mad woman working on a brothel is no joke. Josie will tell you she is doing fine, in spite of or perhaps because of her difficult childhood she is making a life for herself. She has dreams and she has the fighting spirit to make her dreams turn into something solid.

The Future

If you think that this is all set to be a tragic story about a young girl, then you are on the wrong track. Ruta Sepetys choose to focus  on Josie's future, the hard past is something that is part of Josie but it never takes over her life. Josie is living and fighting for a better future. It seems like everything just might be in Josie's reach when she is involved in a murder case. I will not tell you how it all turns out but I need to let you know that this is a story that will give your warm and fussy feelings. Thinking about Josie, her friends and foes makes me feel thins bubbly sensation of happiness inside and I want to hand out a copy to all my friends and make them read Out of the Easy.

Josie spent most of her childhood and teenage years in a bookstore. Perhaps it was this one?© Flickr/Justin Cozart

Characters

In my intro I mentioned how much I fell for the wonderful characters within the word of Out of the Easy, that is just the way it is when a talented author let the characters live a life that feels true, real, a whole lot more than black ink on white paper. Ruta Sepetys writes characters full of richness and complexity, like real live human beings. There is a whole set of memorable characters here; like Willy the brothel owner(based on Norma Wallace), the taxi driver Cookie, mechanic and florist Jessie and many more. I heart them all.

A lovely fasade in New Orleans. © Flickr/Michael Allen Smith

Do you like reading stories featuring memorable and quirky characters? A story that makes you believe in the good that exists in the human kind? With a sweet romance as the delicious cherry on top(or whatever rocks your boat)? Then Out of the Easy is your next read, you won't regret it.

Listen to author Ruta Sepetys talk about what inspired her to write Out of the Easy.



After reading Out of the Easy I dived a bit further into the history of New Orleans, being Norwegian and all I haven't got all that much in depth knowledge on all the American states. I thought I would share some of my finds with you guys before ending this review:

• Louisiana was named after Louis XIV of France
• In 1719 the French founded Nouvelle-Orléans. Guess what the city is called today? ;)
• "The French Quarter" is the oldest quarter in New Orleans
• Napoleon Bonaparte sold New Orleans to America(with Thomas Jefferson as the man in charge) in the Louisiana purchase in 1803 for 15 million USD.
• Author Truman Capote was from New Orleans. You might very well have read or heard of his most famous work; Breakfast at Tiffany's. I have read, and enjoyed, the book.

My favourite summer reads

Summer is here and with it comes optimism, energy and a long reading list. I want to share some of my favourite summer reads and hope you will give me some of yours. What I like to read during the summer are books that are either, fun, thrilling or romantic, or at best all of those things. The summer could be the time you read the heavier stuff but for me and a lot of others I think it`s also then you really have time for page-turners, and to just dive into a book and not come back up again until you finish.

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline: this fast-paced sci-fi/dystopia is fun, thrilling, but not as dark as a lot of the books in this genre can be. It`s mostly a tribute to geekyness and pop culture and one of the most entertaining books I`ve ever read.

The Southern Vampire Mysteries by Charlaine Harris (Sookie Stackhouse): I just started the last book and already I dread the ending of Sookie and her adventures. These books have been my early june-reading for the last few years, and I recommend you to try out the audiobooks. They usually have a mystery that`s solved by the end of each book but there are of course bigger mysteries and storylines through the entire series. It is fun, sexy, exciting and have a lot of love affairs and attractive guys. Eric Northman is probably my biggest literary crush;-) I would not recommend this for the youngest part of the YA-readers as it`s not a YA-book.

Hush hush-series by Becca Fitzpatrick: these are probably my favourite books in my not so favourite-genre Paranormal Romance if that tells you anything:-). These books are dark in a light way and I like that they finish a subplot or mystery in each book because I can`t stand it when these series ends with an cliffhanger that might as well be the end of a chapter.

Perfect Chemistry/Rules of Attraction by Simone Elkeles: I liked the second book Rules of Attraction even better than the first one in The Perfect Chemistry-series about the Fuentes-brothers. I would recommend them both though. They`re romantic, sexy and intense but maybe not the most unpredictable books in the world. The third and last book might be my summer read this year.

Catching Jordan by Miranda Kenneally: a really cute story about a girl, Jordan, who loves to play football with the guys, and she`s really good at it too. When the new player on the team catches her attention having her wishing he was more than her teammate, things starts to get complicated.

What`s your favourite summer reads?

Intelligent and moving YA: Please Ignore Vera Dietz

This is me using the word compassionate in a sentence. Please Ignore Vera Dietz is to me a novel about being compassionate, about caring for what happens to your friends and family. 

Sounds lame? Well if you think so, you, my dear, are very wrong. There is nothing boring or lame about Vera at all. Her story is moving and funny, I laughed and wiped the occational tear away while reading.


So the main character in Please Ignore Vera Dietz, who surprisingly enough is called Vera, is a smart girl. Sometimes she has to study for her vocabulary tests and she involves the reader in her studying. That is what I am playing at in the intro to this review. So there you are!

Best friends from childhood,Vera and Charlie are soon turning eighteen when they suddenly end up as each others nemesis. Then one night Charlie just dies. Should Vera try to find out what happened or is Charlies secrets better off being buried and forgotten alongside him? The hundreds and sometimes thousands of Charlies Vera sees in the most unsuitable situations might be a significant sign that Vera should take action. Either that or Vera is being contacted from the great beyond.

Dare to care

A.S. King's story is for me a story about caring, not turning a blind eye on things that happens to your loved ones. In these days sadly it is not uncommon to turn a blind a when difficult issues lies dead ahead. If we dared to care more about each other it might result in a lot more happy people in the word. Please Ignore Vera Dietz drives this message home, at least for me. The main character Vera learns that one should care, it is not always wise to fly below the radar, but by then it is way too late.

I was always so unsure where Vera would end up, she was living on a dangerous cliff edge, would she tip over over would her feet stay grounded? I guess you have to figure that out by reading this book yourself.

Cheering on the good parents 

I would say it is rather common for parents to be portrayed in a unflattering manner in a lot of YA novels. That or the parents are not visible to the reader at all. That is not the case in PIVD, Vera's father, Ken Dietz, actually has a few chapters here and there all to himself.

By letting Ken Dietz have a voice of his own A.S. King gave the readers a unique view into Ken's thoughts on being a single parent for Vera. Ken tries to understand his daughter and he is doing his very best and still he feels like he is failing. I loved the insight in Ken's life, past and present, it has a lot to do with who Vera is now. Also Ken makes the most hilarious flowcharts.

A wonderful YA novel, and I think young adults and adults both would benefit(and be entertained by) from reading this novel. I think the author have done a great job, one that might provide each parties to understand each other a bit better. One doesn't have to agree with each other all the time, but it do helps to see things from a different perspective. A unputdownable, funny and sad read at the same time. Well done, A.S. King! I will read more of your work, that's for sure.

Check out A.S. King talking about her novel and some other stuff:

I have to add that I first discovered Please Ignore Vera Dietz over at book blogger, now turned published author, Lenore Appelhans' blog back in 2010. You can read Lenore's review here.
Have you read PIVD or any other books by A.S. King?
Do tell me about your A.S. King experience :)

I'll end this review with a song that makes me think about the turning of the main character, Vera, and Charlies relationship.