Review: Hunting Lila by Sarah Alderson

Title: Hunting Lila
Author: Sarah Alderson
Publication date: August 4th 2011

Publisher: Simon and Schuster UK

Age group: Young Adult
Genre: Paranormal
Cover rating: 4/5
Content rating: 
Buy: Amazon

Description:

17-year-old Lila has two secrets she's prepared to take to the grave. The first is that she can move things just by looking at them. The second is that she's been in love with her brother's best friend, Alex, since forever. After a mugging exposes her unique ability, Lila decides to run to the only people she can trust - her brother and Alex. They live in Southern California where they work for a secret organisation called The Unit, and Lila discovers that the two of them are hunting down the men who murdered her mother five years before. 

And that they've found them. In a world where nothing and no one is quite as they seem, Lila quickly realises that she is not alone - there are others out there just like her - people with special powers -and her mother's killer is one of them…

My thoughts: 
I've had my eye on Hunting Lila for a while now. I really love the pretty cover, the title and of course, the premise of the story. So, I was definitely excited when I saw it sitting on the shelf in the library and knew I had to get it straight away! I did go into it with really high hopes which I suppose is never a good thing because it's hard for the book to live up to them. It was mostly good though and definitely worth the read.

This book started out really good! I thought Lila was really easy to like and her character felt very real. I really enjoyed her interactions with her brother and Alex. Their relationships were really sweet and you could tell how close they were, even thought they had been separated for a while for several reasons. They looked after Lila but not because they thought she was weak; it was really was feared that she was in a lot of danger! I thought Jack and Alex's friendship was also great to read about and both were characters I enjoyed getting to know.

My biggest problem with this book was that it didn't really feel like it was about somebody with special powers. Her powers- and the powers of others- seemed so far in the background that I kept forgetting that's what the book was about. It felt more like a realistic romance novel than a paranormal one. By the time this really became important in the story, I was beginning to lose interest. It just took too long for everything develop and it sometimes felt like the characters were going around in circles. The second half of this book just didn't hold my attention despite all the events taking place during it.

Overall, I liked a lot of aspects of this one but a lot of it fell flat for me. The question is: will I be reading the sequel when it's out? Most likely yes, because of course it ended on a bit of a cliffhanger and I really want to know more about it! I'd recommend this book because I think a lot of people will enjoy it. It just wasn't what I was looking for!

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

Title: Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

Author: Lisa See

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing 

Publication date: January 1st 2005 

Age group: Adult 

Genre: Historical Fiction 

Cover rating: 3/5

Content rating:  5/5

Description via Goodreads: 

In nineteenth-century China, in a remote Hunan county, a girl named Lily, at the tender age of seven, is paired with a laotong, old same, in an emotional match that will last a lifetime. The laotong, Snow Flower, introduces herself by sending Lily a silk fan on which she painted a poem in nu shu, a unique language that Chinese women created in order to communicate in secret, away from the influence of men. As the years pass, Lily and Snow Flower send messages on fans, compose stories on handkerchiefs, reaching out of isolation to share their hopes, dreams, and accomplishments. Together, they endure the agony of foot-binding, and reflect upon their arranged marriages, shared loneliness, and the joys and tragedies of motherhood. The two find solace, developing a bond that keeps their spirits alive. But when a misunderstanding arises, their deep friendship suddenly threatens to tear apart.

My thoughts:

This book is set in China, during a time when a woman's worth is based solely on the size of her feet, which is determined by footbinding. If she has small feet, she will marry well. If the footbinding goes wrong, or doesn't happen at all, the girl will be subjected to a life of slavery. The process of footbinding was horrific, and I found it very difficult to read about. The story follows two girls- Lily and Snow Flower- who are bound to each other from the age of seven. We see them grow up together, and face all the challenges woman of that time faced. The women in this book had no freedom, and were seen as nothing more than a means of producing sons. At times, I found the culture hard to grasp, and found myself disliking a lot of the characters for the way they acted- but that was just the way it was. Overall, I found the book compelling, and extremely interesting.