The Lighter Side of Life and Death by C.K. Kelly Martin

Title: The Lighter Side of Life and Death

Author: C.K. Kelly Martin

Age Group: Older Teens

# of Pages: 240

My Rating: 4.5/5

After Mason starred in his school play, he and his friends had a celebratory party right after. Kat, who is his friend of three years, caught her boyfriend having sex with someone else during the party. Pissed, she wanted to leave and Mason felt bad so he went with her. They ended up back at his place and both lost their virginities that night.

Right after, Kat was so freaked out about what had happened decided to distance herself away from Mason. Mason was confused but there was nothing that he could do. He ends up one day bumping into Colette, a twenty-three year old woman, who changes his life forever.

This is the third novel by the Toronto author, C.K. Kelly Martin, who I have enjoyed her previous novels in the past. I have to say so far this novel is my favourite out of the three.

There is quite a bit of sexuality in this novel, compared to the last two if I recalled correctly. It explores the desires and lust of a teenage boy who is experiencing much more than someone at that age. Mason is honest to himself about what is happening and has issues in all areas of his life, like a real boy. It sucks that he is confused by Kat's actions after they slept together. However, as a girl, any reader could understand why she acted the way she did.

I think why I found this to be my favourite because it involves falling for someone older. However, not so old that the age difference is so clear. I haven't been able to read about anyone in their early twenties yet so Colette was a nice and different touch to the book.

There were definitely some family conflicts, especially with Mason and his tween step-sister. You can't help but get annoyed with her too because if you have a sibling, you understand Mason's irritations. Maybe I have been raised this way, but I hate the idea of siblings swearing at each other (unless something really bad happened and they are much older). So when Mason called her a bitch, I cringed. I try my best to censor my language around my sister because she is in grade 6 and I don't want to hear any swear words from her (unfortunately that can't be said with other kids her age these days...).

To conclude, The Lighter Side of Life and Death is a great contemporary read for anyone who would love a more realistic approach with romance compared to the general chick flicks.

Review copy received from Random House.

One Lonely Degree by C.K. Kelly Martin

Title: One Lonely Degree

Author: C.K. Kelly Martin

Age Group: Older Teens

# of Pages: 243

My Rating: 4.5/5

Finn's parents are starting to argue more and more. She fears for their separation but she can't do anything about it. At school, she meets a new student named Jersy, who ends up being an old friend back in the days.

Her best friend, Audrey, starts dating Jersy shortly after. Except when Audrey's parents found out, she got in trouble and is sent away for two months during the summer break. Unexpectedly as Finn hangs around Jersy more and more, she starts to like him herself. How can she possibly hide this from Audrey?

In the beginning, I found Finn to be one of the most pessimistic people ever. Maybe not to the extreme, but enough that I did not like her personality for quite a few chapters. After awhile she did manage to drift away from her pessimism, which made it a better read. I did find her to be realistic though, especially towards her parents' relationship and her feelings for both Audrey and Jersy. She is quite relatable and her situation does suck for she must choose between her friend and the guy she likes.

Martin kept the plot simple and used the curiosity of the audience's to continue reading. I found myself picking up the novel shortly after putting it down often. I just love the flow of the novel and you don't really notice the length because it sucks you in.

Like in her first novel, I Know It's Over, One Lonely Degree also ends off in a very realistic note. What I love about Martin's stories is that she doesn't sugarcoat things by giving a happily ever after ending. There's some happy parts and some some parts, just like in real life. It's another reason why you can't help but enjoy her novels. Her writing is also most addicting!

I definitely recommend One Lonely Degree, especially for the summer season!

Won copy from C.K. Kelly Martin.

Holland Severson from I Know It's Over

Holland Severson is the sister of Nick's from I Know It's Over by C.K. Kelly Martin. If you have read this coming-of-age novel, you would know that Nick came home to see her with a "friend". What have they been doing? Well now you will know...

~~~

Orange Crush

Diego gulps down Orange Crush on such a regular basis that I’m surprised his teeth haven’t turned orange yet. As a frequent witness to this uber-consumption, you can imagine I’m not at all shocked to discover that he tastes like Orange Crush too. His teeth. His tongue. His lips. They’re all smack full of concentrated orange fizz flavour. There’s, like, a full-scale explosion of carbonated orange going on in his mouth, and mine too since I’m sharing his.

At first I get the feeling that he’s not really into what we’re doing, that he’s humouring me with his lips while his heart aches for his ex, Elodie out in Trois-Rivières, Quebec. I know he’s been gloomy since she broke it off, which was the entire point of this exercise – gloom-banishing. But I’m the kind of person who can (sometimes) admit when I’m wrong, so I ease my mouth away from Diego’s and say, “Maybe this was a bad idea.”

Diego begins to nod. He opens his mouth and is on the verge of agreeing with me when I spy another idea flit across his mind and take root. “Why?” he demands in the heavy Italian accent that coats his fluent English. “Are you saying that I can’t kiss?”

A very healthy percentage of the girls (and guys!) I go to school with would rent their souls to evil forces if it meant being able to play lickey-face with the star of our senior soccer team yet somehow he’s managed to retain an endearing amount of humility. This is why I hang out with Diego. He’s the kind of person that could probably be or do anything and deep down he must have an inkling about that but he never makes anyone else feel like that gift comes at their expense. Plus, while his looks reside in the arena of Greek godishness, he also happens to be an enormous sci-fi geek. He knows Charleton Heston’s dialogue from the original version of Planet of the Apes by heart. Ditto with Donald Sutherland’s lines in the remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers (which we both happen to prefer to the 1956 original). All these immensely appealing things about him mean we’ll never actually be anything other than friends. It would absolutely suck if one of us broke the other’s heart meaning we could never hang out again.

However, never being more than friends doesn’t mean we can’t kiss a little for the greater good of him getting over Elodie. Only locking lips with Diego doesn’t seem to be accomplishing that, not remotely. Two seconds before I pulled my mouth away he was kissing me the same way I usually load the dishwasher – like a thing that needs to be done but is in itself entirely joyless. I swear I’m not insulted, but if kissing me’s not going to be any more fun for him than tying his shoelaces, I can’t see the point.

“I’m sure you can you kiss when you want to,” I tell him. “But with this whole Elodie thing you obviously don’t feel like it. Maybe you’re not ready to be distracted. It was probably just a stupid idea in the first place.”

Diego shifts his gaze from my face to the wall and then back to me. His left foot anxiously taps the floor. “One more try,” he says, scrunching his eyebrows. “Okay?”

I can’t help but smile. Now he’s thinking of this as a challenge. He wants to prove to me that he can kiss and that’s so not the issue but that’s not to say another kiss won’t accomplish our original goal.

So I greenlight Act II. But I let Diego make the first move this time. Let him tell me we should lie down on the couch. Let him lie on top of me and kiss me like he could’ve kissed me in the first place if he’d wanted to. He’s Orange Crush delicious and heavier than I would’ve guessed but I don’t care that he’s squashing me because this time we’re having fun. If I could work out a way for us to do this a couple of times a week without it leading down the thorny path to boyfriend-girlfriendship and eventual breakup I’d seriously consider suggesting it.

But unfortunately it’s a problem I just can’t see my way around and besides…

Besides, the sound of feet padding away from us out in the hall concludes our experiment, at least for today. My brother Nick’s been immersed in some top secret crisis since Christmas and told me just yesterday that he was planning to lay low at his friend’s place for the next couple of days, but Mom would’ve interrupted us. That must mean it was Nick who got an eyeful from the hall. Should I pretend I didn’t hear him? And then what? It’s not like I can go back to making out with Diego knowing that Nick’s in the vicinity. That might’ve work for my brother and his ex-girlfriend Sasha but it’s too claustrophobic-freaky for me.

Diego sits up fast, his eyes scanning the bit of hall he can see from our spot on the family room couch. “Stay here,” I say, sitting up next to him. “I’ll go take care of this.”

Diego runs a hand through his hair and frowns. “Relax,” I say, smiling as I squeeze his forearm. “Now I’m fully convinced you can kiss like a champion.”

Diego returns my smile. “You should never have doubted me,” he jokes back.

I didn’t. Who would?

A thunking noise leads me along the hall and towards the kitchen where, sure enough, my brother is exuding the same messed up vibes that were hanging off his being before he left for his friend’s place yesterday. I hate that he won’t tell me what’s been going on with him lately and I especially hate that he caught me on the couch with Diego. I should be able to have some secrets too.

I spy Nick’s backpack on the tile floor and Nick himself is staring at me like he wants to have this conversation even less than I do. His cheeks are pink, as though he walked home in the cold.

“What’re you doing here?” I ask, folding my arms in front of me. “I thought you were staying at Nathan’s.”

“Sasha’s coming over,” Nick says in a tense voice. Sasha hasn’t been here since they broke up more than a month and he doesn’t sound exactly thrilled at her imminent arrival, but before I can ask him what’s up, Nick turns the tables and wants to know who’s in the other room. I’ve barely said Diego’s name when the front doorbell rings. Being saved by the bell is one of those things that happen in real life, not just in fiction, and this is one of those instances.

Nick hurries for the door and I head back to Diego, thinking about our interrupted Orange Crush kiss, how my mouth still tastes like oranges and how it’s possible that I’ll associate Orange Crush with kissing Diego for a long time to come.

“Are we in trouble?” Diego asks as I stride into the room.

“Nope. Not at all.”

“Good,” Diego says as I sit down next to him. We smile Orange Crush smiles at each other as I turn on the TV and we begin to fall back into what we’re best at, which is being the kind of friends who would never, ever break each other’s hearts, but who, maybe under the most special extenuating circumstances, could kiss a little in the service of a greater good.

~~~

Hehe, now we know what Holland does when her parents are out! Want to know more about her brother though? You then have to read I Know It's Over!

Prize(s): A signed hardback OR paperback copy of I Know It's Over (winner's choice) and an I Know It's Over journal
# of Winners: 1
Eligibility: International

How to get entries: (please put keep it in the format below when you comment!)
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Author Interview: C.K. Kelly Martin

As a recent Canadian YA novelist, she has made an impact in the YA book blogging world. You may have seen her popular work, I Know It's Over, or her latest release, One Lonely Degree, around. I present to you, C.K. Kelly Martin! I have asked her a few questions regarding I Know It's Over and her personal opinions on teen sex.

If you would like to learn more about C.K. and her books, please visit her at www.ckkellymartin.blogspot.com.

Firstly, what inspired you to write I Know It's Over?

I’d just finished a trilogy with a female character and really wanted to work on something with a male central character. But what specifically inspired the storyline was the Third Eye Blind song Ten Days Late. Stories about pregnancy are usually from the female point of view but to imagine one from the flipside seemed intriguing. In the song the news is a complete surprise to the guy, the way it is to Nick, and I really wanted to know how things would progress from there.

In I Know It's Over, you wrote from a male's perspective. What was it like to write in a teenage boy's voice? Did you have to ask any male friends on their opinions if they were in Nick's position?

Every voice you write in is different and I think the important thing, whoever you’re writing about (whatever age, gender, race they are) is to get the details correct. You’re not thinking about how a generic guy would think about things or react to events in his life but how specifically, Nick, being who he is, would think and react. There are definitely different social expectations weighing on guys and girls. Generally society is okay with guys being somewhat aggressive but not so much with showing more vulnerable emotions while girls are broadly encouraged to display more vulnerability and be nurturing but when they act aggressively are often called ‘bitchy’. At the core we have similar emotions though. So no, I didn’t seek out any opinions, I just let myself be guided by Nick’s personality in combo with the societal expectations being exerted on him.

What is your take on teen pregnancy and sex?

I think unwanted pregnancy is a difficult thing for people of any age to deal with, but usually even harder when you’re a teenager because you have fewer resources and less experience. I’m glad there’s less abstinence based sex ed going on in the U.S. now (studies show that really doesn’t work). But there’s still a lot of work to be done in this area in the States and Canada. There was a survey from Planned Parenthood Toronto recently that showed 83% per cent of the teens surveyed had never accessed sexual heath care, although most of them had already engaged in some kind of sex.

Obviously pressure to have sex (and there’s a hell of a lot of that in our society) is wrong but equating sex with shame is also wrong. I think it’s terrible if teenagers don’t get the health care they need because of some kind of fear of being judged. I think that if Sasha and Nick in I Know It’s Over could’ve walked into a drugstore and bought Plan B morning after pills like they were buying a bag of chips the whole ordeal she and Nick went through never would’ve happened. We currently have a weird situation here in Canada where Plan B pills no longer have behind the counter status yet all the pharmacists I spoke to still keep them there.

In general for you, what is the hardest part in writing any story? And the easiest?

It’s weird because I love writing but I think the very hardest part is actually getting down to it. I procrastinate like crazy and I don’t know why. Sometimes, once I get dug into writing for the day I don’t want to stop, even if I have concert tickets or something like that. I force myself to shut down the computer and go because once I’m there I have a good time, of course, but when I’m in the zone I never want to stop. So why is it so hard to get started? I’m really not sure.

The easiest bit is creating the characters themselves. They just seem to evolve in my head with their own voice, personality and issues without me doing much work but writing all that stuff out in detail is more difficult – transcribing what you know of the character and their situation.

Both of your novels are realistic contemporary stories. What kind of things inspire you to write?

So many different things – songs, plays, newspaper articles, conversations you have with people or sometimes conversations you happen to overhear. Potential titles themselves are a big inspiration – mostly I get a phrase or word stuck in my head and the book grows from there.

Do you plan on possibly writing in a different genre, like fantasy for example?

The book I’m currently working on is still YA but has some different elements to it but for the moment I really do mostly prefer working on contemporary teen fiction. When I’m reading YA myself (and adult books too) that’s the stuff I like the best, stories where it seems like events could truly be happening almost exactly as described to real-life people very much like the characters you’re reading about.

Are there any writing projects you are working on at the moment?

The novel I mentioned above is way back in the queue as far as books of mine being released goes so I don’t want to give away too many details but before that’s another book which is written in alternate points of view (second cousins, one who is a seventeen year old girl and the other who is a sixteen year old guy). Also, I just finished up copy-edits on my third book, The Lighter Side of Life and Death. It’s about sixteen-year-old Mason Rice, who is on a high after starring in the school play and falling into bed with his best girl friend who he’s had a crush on for years. Unfortunately, she feels the incident was a big mistake and their friendship begins to crumble. His other best friend, who had a thing for the same girl, is also angry with him. Mason, wanting a distraction from these negative aspects of his life, begins pursuing this twenty-four year old woman he’s met recently but thinks nothing will come of it. Turns out, he’s wrong!

Lastly, give us an interesting fact about yourself that not a lot of people know of!

My brother and I were extras in the Police Academy 4 movie when we were kids. I’m not sure if anybody even remembers those movies but basically they were comedies about people who made terrible recruits trying to become cops. The film was shot in Caledon and mostly I just remember being in the catering tent, hanging out until the extras were needed. I think we got paid for it too but I can’t remember how much.

Trailer Tuesday: One Lonely Degree by C.K. Kelly Martin

Title: One Lonely Degree
Author: C.K. Kelly Martin
Description: Fifteen-year-old Finn Kavanagh feels like an outsider in a world of pack animals. In that way tenth grade isn’t any different than the ninth but sometimes she doesn’t feel like the same person anymore. Ever since what happened at that party last September she has to wonder if she’ll ever be right.

Best friend Audrey does everything she can to help her through the ordeal but now Finn has other problems—like her parents’ marriage unraveling and complicated feelings for Jersy, the new guy in art class. When Audrey and Jersy become a couple Finn’s almost relieved but the feeling doesn’t last. Audrey goes away for the summer leaving Finn alone to deal with her parents’ issues and unresolved emotions about that night in September. Only Finn isn’t actually alone—Jersy’s still in the picture and she still likes him way too much.

I like C.K.'s debut novel, I Know It's Over, so I'm looking forward to her latest release.

I Know It's Over by C.K. Kelly Martin

Title: I Know It's Over
Author: C.K. Kelly Martin
Age Group: Older Teens
# of Pages: 244
My Rating: 5/5

Nick Severson has another year and a half to go before he graduates. He is in the hockey team and is living his life as a teenager. All goes wrong when his ex-girlfriend comes back... to tell him that she is pregnant with his child.

He still has feelings for Sasha, who broke it off with him because she wanted to focus in school and her future. Now with her pregnant, his whole world falls apart as he tries to sort out his emotions and problems. What will happen to the both of them?

The first half of the book starts off with how Nick met Sasha. Eventually it moves back to the present as Nick tries to cope with the news from his ex. It is a touching story and I love how realistic the characters are. Sometimes in books, characters tend to be a bit one-dimensional. Not only can you relate to Nick and the others, but they also have depth and their character grows over time. Even the side characters does their part very well to affect Nick's actions. Not to mention, the setting is in Ontario! (Canadian pride, yo). But I have to say when I was reading it halfway, it seemed like it would never end! I was about a hundred pages away from completing it before I wanted everything to conclude already. But I am pretty satisfied with the ending and I wonder what will happen to everyone in the future.

I'm sure anyone who loves realistic romance will enjoy this story about love, heartbreaking moments, and the struggle of understanding.

Won copy from All My Little Words...C.K. Blogs.