Chasing Brooklyn

Lisa Schroeder’s novel, Chasing Brooklyn, is about a girl named Brooklyn who’s boyfriend, Lucca, dies from a dared high cliff jump and her guilt eats her alive. But Lucca isn’t the only boy from her school to die; just a year later her friend Gabe dies from an overdose. I really enjoyed the book because of the extreme emotions and how Schroeder’s writing style portrays how these deaths truly affected the main character both mentally and physically. Chasing Brooklyn was published in 2010, and is still a great read today.

Brooklyn has unique and traumatic dreams every night and that leads to her downfall, until Nico, her boyfriend’s brother, returns to her life. They struggle together, fighting their own demons while still trying to support one another. They grow closer through the power of running and exercising for a big race at the end of the book. Brooklyn is having visitors in her dreams, and it’s not Lucca, but a rotting Gabe, haunting her. 

This is a great book for someone who is looking for sad, realistic, for the most part, poetry book that is surprisingly young adult with more adult related issues in it. It has humor but also sorrow and represents the characters well but also has some horror and ghosts in it. I highly recommend this book because it has a great story line and is a very easy, but sad, reading.

4.5 out of 5 stars While it is a good and easy read, I wish there was more to the race in the end of the book. That is the main endgame or end goal for this book and they didn’t cover enough of it and more so focused on how the characters had changed from the beginning of the book to the end, which isn’t bad; I just wanted to see more of the race since they had been training for it majority of the book.

I Heart You, You Haunt Me

The sad poetry writing of Lisa Schroeder called, I Heart You, You Haunt Me, is a story that follows a 15-year-old named Ava who’s boyfriend, Jackson, tragically dies. Schroeder uses intricate and precise language to illustrate the mental strain put onto this teen from this event. It was published on January 8, 2008. This is a good read because it is easy to read and has conflicts and issues throughout it that keep the reader on the edge of their seat.

Without spoiling any of the heart wrenching details, readers see Ava ultimately losing herself because she didn’t see herself as an individual, moreso a package, always being ‘her and Jackson’.

This takes a toll on her mental state, worrying her parents and friends. This book does have a resolve to it however, a beautiful finale that puts the readers at ease. Ava and Jackson’s relationship is touched upon throughout the book, flashbacks here and there, but most of it is her daily life. Ava almost gives up in life, her entire world just failing around her until she got the one thing back that fixed her for just a moment, Jackson. He is a ghost that isn’t ‘at peace’ and is hanging around her house to relieve her of her worries to be able to move on from between the physical world and beyond.

It reminds me of a journal of poetry of her day-to-day life, which allows readers to better comprehend how this negative and tough time is affecting the main character. I really liked this book and it definitely can make anyone cry. Another interesting part of this book is the fact that it reads as a more adult-like book with the raw emotions and tragic events, however, it is a young adult novel and is written strategically to portray the true feelings this 15-year-old is experiencing.

5 out 5 stars It covered the storyline very well and expressed all of the differences the characters had experienced and changed in order to cope with the hard times they were facing. I liked the rawness and true sadness felt in this book and how it reciprocated that through the ink on the pages. I really enjoyed this book even though I cried many times throughout it, it is well written and tells the story well.

Far From You

In the novel, Far from You, by Lisa Schroder, Alice is a teen who is struggling with the loss of her mother to cancer, and her father is with a new woman named Victoria. Another character in the book is a baby girl named Ivy that Alice’s dad and Victoria had. This book was published in December 2008 and is a really good read. Its climax is after many fights and walls being put up between the main character and her family, they go on a road trip. On said road trip, her dad is called to work on the way back, so Victoria, Ivy and Alice are returning home until a snowstorm hits.

Trapped and lost in the middle of nowhere, these characters establish a connection and it resolves the rifts between them in order to survive. I enjoyed this book because it was a rollercoaster with romance, heart ache, fear and suspense. I always loved books that kept me on the edge of my seat, especially ones I can’t put down, which this book accomplished both. 

4.5 out of 5 stars It shows how teens often separate themselves from others, especially family when they feel out of place or misheard. In this book it shows how Alice is pushed aside from her family with the new baby and distances herself from her family, slowly breaking ties with them. This allows the readers to really connect with her and understand how this is making her feel. I like how realistic Schroder’s novels are and how she still puts her own little spin on it with something that isn’t real but makes the emotional levels so real that readers can’t help but feel the realism.