Author: Rachele Alpine
Release Date: August 1, 2013
by, Medallion Press
Pages: 288
Staying quiet will destroy her, but speaking up will destroy everyone.~Review:
Kate Franklin’s life changes for the better when her dad lands a job at Beacon Prep, an elite private school with one of the best basketball teams in the state. She begins to date a player on the team and quickly gets caught up in a world of idolatry and entitlement, learning that there are perks to being an athlete.
But those perks also come with a price. Another player takes his power too far and Kate is assaulted at a party. Although she knows she should speak out, her dad’s vehemently against it and so, like a canary sent into a mine to test toxicity levels and protect miners, Kate alone breathes the poisonous secrets to protect her dad and the team. The world that Kate was once welcomed into is now her worst enemy, and she must decide whether to stay silent or expose the corruption, destroying her father’s career and bringing down a town’s heroes.
Canary is told in a mix of prose and verse.{Goodreads}
What is this!? Did someone send out a letter saying that depressing, struggling, coming of age stories were in? I've read so many it feels like this year! I sure didn't get the memo. Now, I am not in any way saying that is a bad thing. I like these stories best. I like the broken being fixed. The struggles it takes for someone to find themselves. It's real and true.
Rachele Alpine does not disappoint. Like I said before, it seems as if I have read these types of stories back to back, and again, I am not complaining. Mrs. Alpine tackled the story of teenage life and it's ups and downs, high school's hierarchy and the struggle to "be on top", the everyday life struggles that mold us teens into the adults we can become and might I say...she nailed it! Now, high school isn't like the movies. Most of the time you don't get a raging bitch who runs the school. You do get bitches and asses but...well, you get those everywhere. I think when Mrs. Alpine was portraying the high school heirarchy, the elites, the rulers of campus, whatever you want to call them she was just giving a bigger picture of how tough fitting in can be. You want to be recognized, loved, adored. You don't realize just how slippery of a slope that can be.
We are given the character of Kate to take the dark road for us. Man, my hear actually physically hurt when reading this book. The things she had to go through was rough. She was strong because she feared, be cause she loved and lost, because she lost sight of what was important, because she lost herself. Strong because despite all that, she made it through, she found herself, she found what was important and lost what was not. She was strong because she survived. Not survived as in fought an army with one a pin and needle but survived what might have other's cracking. I loved her. She is a protagonist worthy of the term "heroine". Sometimes society distorts all of what we hold dearly and we are temporarily blinded by it all. We cause our own pain, our own destruction. This is what Rachele shows us. This is why it was so devastating...because whether we want to see it or not...its all true.
Canary is a powerful read. It takes you on a journey filled with loss, heartache, betrayal, and the road that leads you to finding yourself, voice, and fully accepting who you are. It was not an easy journey. That's what I loved about it so much. These days so many stories (books, movies, etc) show the bad and the outcome being completely unaffected by it. That's not true and that's not real. We have to struggle to get to the top. We have to make mistake after mistake until we finally get it right. Sometimes we have so many problems that your drowning in them and you think you will never catch your breath but when you finally do....its worth it. It doesn't seem like it at the time but its true. As they say: "A smooth sea never made a skillful sailor." This is true in Canary.
I was hooked from page one. The writing of Rachele Alpine is intoxicating. She pushes the boundaries. She pushes herself. She pushes Kate. The most unique thing about this book is the daily blog entries. Kate's "Daily Truth". Yes, Kate keeps track of everything in a blog. She writes all the happenings of her day, every day. The way she writes them is so beautiful. Some are so heart-wrenching but they are beautiful. They are lyrical, poetic, inspiring. So not only does Rachele write a book but a blog in a book, talk about talent. I haven't read something like that. It was unique and captivating.
The amount of talent Rachele Alpine is unbelievable. She has truly made a fan out of me. I will read anything and everything by her. I can hardly believe that she was the one coming to me at the beginning of the year asking me if I wanted to read her book. That she was giving me and my blog compliments. That it was an honor of hers if I would read and review her book. All along it should have been me begging her for a chance to read her book. The honor is truly all mine. It was an absolute pleasure to be gifted with an advanced copy of her book. To get a chance to read the greatness that is Canary. My emotions ran wild with this book. I teared up, I got angry, I got depressed. Rachele has your emotions in the palm of your hand and she will own them. You will not be in control of them when reading this book. I wasn't..that is for sure.
So all in all, when this book comes out, read it. It is a book that will capture you from the beginning leaving you breathless at the end. It's not one with a happy ending waiting at the end. It's not terrible but the road to the end is torture. You will be reading Kate's snowball effect and have no power over it. All you can do is continue reading and anticipate the end. You watch that snowflake touch the ground and start rolling, picking up speed and increasing inside, seeing Kate at the bottom in direct line of impact. You can scream, you can shout warning after warning but you are powerless. The outcome is inevitable. And you want to save yourself the horror but you can't because you are so hooked. Canary's got its claws hooked into your heart, its song singing for you to continue while also voicing a warning. I felt as if I was in one of those sound proof glass boxes with the one way vision except you got the vision and no one can see you...seeing and hearing everything but having no one hear or see you. Its torture and again, I couldn't stop. It was amazing. By the end I was truly breathless. My heart hurt and all I could do was lay down for the night and think it all over.
Read it, hate it, love it. ;D Those are the three steps to an amazing book. The books associated with the word "great" are the ones that aren't perfect. They don't have the indestructible heroine with the fearlessness and courage to feed an army of thousands, they have the rough and the tough that is all too true. Those are the books I find to steal my heart and Canary is one of them. The one's that are 5 star worthy. It's one I will swear up and down on. Keep with me as a reminder, as a source of inspiration. I will encourage this book to all.
~Rating:
5 of 5 stars!
*This review is a part of the Canary Book Tour hosted by AtomR Tours*
~The Author:
Rachele Alpine is a lover of sushi, fake mustaches, and Michael Jackson. One of her first jobs was at a library, but it didn’t last long, because all she did was hide in the third-floor stacks and read. Now she’s a little more careful about when and where she indulges her reading habit. By day she’s a high school English teacher, and by night she writes with the companionship of the world’s cutest dog, Radley, a big cup of coffee, and a full bag of gummy peaches. Rachele lives with her husband in Cleveland, Ohio, but dreams of moving back to Boston, the city she fell in love with while attending graduate school there.
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