Mundie Moms

Monday, February 21, 2011

Book Review- Mad Love

By Suzanne Selfors
Published by Walker Books for Young Readers
Released on January 4th, 2011
Source- Book from Bloomsbury for review
3 stars- It's A Good Read

When you're the daughter of the bestselling Queen of Romance, life should be pretty good. But 16-year-old Alice Amorous has been living a lie ever since her mother was secretly hospitalized for mental illness. After putting on a brave front for months, time is running out. The next book is overdue, and the Queen can't write it. Alice needs a story for her mother—and she needs one fast.

That's when she meets Errol, a strange boy who claims to be Cupid, who insists that Alice write about the greatest love story in history: his tragic relationship with Psyche. As Alice begins to hear Errol's voice in her head and see things she can't explain, she must face the truth—that she's either inherited her mother's madness, or Errol is for real (quoted from Goodreads).

After reading Mad Love's synopsis I was really looking forward to reading a book that sounded like it was going to be a fun, quirky love story. I was intrigued to hear Cupid's love story. I mean, this is Cupid, the being who's responsible for making people fall in love, but this Cupid is far from the traditional Cupid. He's not some chubby faced kid, but an angst, "smoldering" sixteen year old who's lived for centuries. It's only fitting that he go in search of the perfect author to write his book, The Queen of Romance.

The Queen of Romance (Alice's famous mother who's a romance author) has been in a mental hospital for the last few months and her sixteen year old daughter Alice has been "covering" for her and hiding the fact that her mother suffers from bio-polar and is in the hospital. I have to say I admire Alice for trying to do what she thinks is the right thing. She's raising herself and trying to do it all, but Alice is finding it's getting harder and harder to keep the facade that her mother is over seas, especially since the money is running out and her publisher is waiting for her next book.

Alice is someone I admired as she is very loyal and will do anything she can to protect her mom. I can only imagine what it must be like to have fans and the media wanting to know everything about "The Queen of Romance", which is why Alice acts like her mother behind the scenes. I was really drawn into Alice's world and gaining an understanding of what Alice has had to go through dealing with her mother's bio-polar, feeling unwanted/unloved up until her mother got treatment. Alice is a strong character and someone I sympathized with as she's grown up fast and has been the adult in the relationship with her mom. On that same note, there were times Alice really irritated me as she acted very immature, which didn't fit with her character. I was really bothered when something happens and Alice is blackmailed and doesn't stand up and say "No", though later she does redeem herself at the end of the book.

With Errol aka Cupid, there were times I really enjoyed getting to know his character, but like Alice, there were times I was really frustrated with him. He's suppose to be this mysterious guy who all the sudden becomes a part of Alice's life and wants her to write his story. I get that it would very freaky if a creepy (hot guy with intense eyes) wearing a black hoodie during a heat wave in Seattle would be stalking me and trying to convince that I have to write his love story, but how many times does he have to make his point he's Cupid before Alice believes him? Don't get me wrong, I did laugh when Errol does something to make Alice believe him, but I almost stopped reading the book after the fact when she goes back to second guessing him. That's the part that of the story that bothered me the most, as it was so drawn out with Alice realizing Errol really is Cupid, especially after all the things he does to prove who he is.

Over all there was some great secondary characters who added humor and realism to the story and felt more in depth than Errol and Alice at times. By the end of the story I understand Errol's character a lot more and I really liked the mythology that was twisted into Errol's love story as it has to do with the Gods and Psyche, Errol's true love whom Alice resembles. I felt I got to really know Errol a little too late in the story, and that will make sense when you read it as I don't want to giveaway any spoilers. Don't get me wrong, there were times I really enjoyed the story and other times I was frustrated with it. I did like the simple romance between Alice and "Skater Guy" aka Tony, and I liked that Suzanne brought to light bio-polar and getting to see the two sides of this mental illness from both Alice and her mom. Suzanne has a very unique character and love story with Errol/Cupid, which I liked, but in the end I was left feeling I needed more from his story to really fall in love with it.

Though I didn't fall head over heals in love with Mad Love, I would recommend to YA fans who enjoy a quirky, fun, twisted love story. I will definitely be picking up more of Suzanne's books.

Mundane Monday #73

Happy Monday!!! Today we the best of both the TMI and ID world. Our first MM treat is from Kara-lija, who's become one of our favorite TMI fan art artists, and the other is a fabulous teaser Cassie tweeted for fans yesterday involving Tessa and Jem from ID. I believe many of us MM's let out a sigh after both seeing the TMI picture and then reading the ID teaser.....

I love this new art work of Kara-lija's! I really should wait to use it for next week's Mundane Monday, but I can't help it. This needed to be posted today. She captures Jace and Clary perfectly!

Image found here

Second to last of the Valentine's weekend CP Teasers: Jem & Tessa. My apologies if I have botched up the Mandarin. You can't get accent marks or anything like that into Twishort.

“Say something in Mandarin,” said Tessa, with a smile.
Jem said something that sounded like a lot of breathy vowels and consonants run together, his voice rising and falling melodically: “Ni hen piao liang.”
“What did you say?” Tessa was curious.
“I said your hair is coming undone — here,” he said, and reached out and tucked an escaping curl back behind her ear. Tessa felt the blood spill hot up into her face, and was glad for the dimness of the carriage. “You have to be careful with it,” he said, taking his hand back, slowly, his fingers lingering against her cheek.

What do you guys think? I know the teasers are killers as now you want to be able to read the whole scene. I can't believe I left off mentioning this (thank you CrimsonInk for the reminder), Cassie replied in a tweet that what Jem was REALLY saying to Tessa is, "You are so beautiful." I know that earns a major *sigh* from us!

Enjoy your Mondays!

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