Acquired Book By: I am a regular tour hostess for blog tours via Chapter by Chapter, where I receive opportunities to host Cover Reveals & Author Guest Features on behalf of the Indie Publisher Month9Books. I continue to welcome hosting another Indie Publisher: Rebelight Publishing of whom I love the stories by their Middle Grade & YA authors! I jumped at the chance to read this exciting novel for Middle Grade readers, as I am always seeking out light infused Children’s Lit which has a resounding story-line stitched together with a life lesson and/or a character who children can relate too as much as they can celebrate having found. For a bit of background on Rebelight Publishing, please read my anchour supplement on the top of my review for “Missing in Paradise”.
I received a complimentary copy of “Hannah Both Ways” direct from the publisher Rebelight Publishing in exchange for an honest review. I did not receive compensation for my opinions or thoughts shared herein.
Realistic YA:
As mentioned recently on my spotlight revealling interview showcase for #DarkChocLit, I appreciate convicting realistic fiction – Hannah Both Ways is my second find for young adult literature, as The Summer of Chasing Mermaids was the last novel I’ve read where I felt a story fit this niche perfectly. Prior to Ockler’s novel, I give top credit to curating this sub-genre to Wonder by R.J. Palacio and The Strength of Ballerinas by Nancy Lorenz. The latter of whom is releasing a sequel American Ballerina this December, which I will be reading with wicked anticipation!
I appreciate finding stories that create a space for delving into the harder subjects that all teens face at some point or another. To find the novelists who get this part of life so epically real as if they were reliving their own living truth spilt out onto the pages of their novel, is one way of finding tomorrow’s classics. I like to keep my reading life open to where the redefinition of YA literature is taking today’s readers – as both teenagers and adults are reading YA. We all entered or re-entered the genre for different reasons, but what has us happily made us become encroached inside the genre are the heart centred stories and the incredible breadth of realism being etched inside them.
Notation on Cover-Art: When I first saw the cover art for this novel, it’s the numbers that drew the most curiosity out of me. I mistook them for ISP signatures because I did not realise there was a ‘space’ between the clusters to where the numbers themselves were only in sequences of XXX.XX rather than a longer numerical code. This is definitely a convincing cover for the novel because it’s reflecting the key heart of Hannah’s story: introspective and retrospectively sorting out her life.
Hannah Both Ways
A devastating Twitter prank yanks Hannah out of the popular crowd and turns her into the high school’s best bad joke. Determined to finish the year and graduate, Hannah must keep the humiliating details from her impulsive mother—who just might pack up their belongings and move. Again.
Hannah hovers below the radar by submersing herself in a new routine. Post-it notes, Dewey Decimal numbers and carefully planned trips to the library are her refuge. That is, until a persistent new student invades her space. Lucas has complete disregard for Hannah’s cynicism and snark, and he seems to know the bullies who targeted her. Can Hannah trust him, or is he part of another ploy to torment her?
Places to find the book:
ISBN: 9780994839947
on 17th November, 2015
Pages: 218
Published By: Rebelight Publishing, Inc. (@RebelightBooks)
Converse via: #HannahBothWays & #YALit OR #CanLit
Available Formats: Paperback, Ebook
My review of Hannah Both Ways:
Anyone who spent the majority of their school years (especially high school in particular) sorting out how they did not fit into the mainstream of that closed shoppe will appreciate the opening to Hannah Both Ways because Greenway has given such a brilliant opener to hug us close to Hannah in such a way as to understand her without pausing to ask about her back-story! She’s relatable and she’s honest; real to any budding novelist whose spent hours locked in a classroom where words were far more interesting than the tedium of required classwork. Even her quick-thinking response to her English Lit teacher’s displeasure on her choice of choosing a shorter poem vs a longer one brought back memories of my own teenage angst!
Hannah is trying so earnestly hard to push people away, she barely has time or the inclination rather to notice when someone is pushing back – or at least making a viable attempt to show her kindness when she’d rather give him lip for irking her ire. She’s caught in a self-condemned trap of repetitive behaviour where her entire life revolves around what she can control vs what could unexpectedly alter her path. She’s dedicated to keeping everything in order rather than risk losing one fragment of her time to lay thought or mind on what is really bothering her. The new boy at her school is pushing her buttons because he can see through her facade and on some level I think that both intrigues her and terrifies her at the same time. Her personality is so strong and so fiercely conceived through Greenway’s vision of her, that I was dearly reminded of another spunky heroine from Etched On Me!
Part of her survival tap dance at school is seeking out a new call number for a book she hasn’t yet met at her school’s library. It’s a solid plan really – tuck inside a relatively unpopular corner of the library, grab a book off the shelf and dig inside a topic or subject you know little about to pass the time. Hannah finds the call numbers are a balm to her stress, although she doesn’t exactly reveal what is stressing her out in so many words. Before we can know all the facts of what reinstated her life to this repetition, we have to understand her path back to normalcy.
Hannah takes the advice of her writing teacher to find a way to give cathartic release to her anxiety and issues surrounding the events that are still not fully known to us. She begins to chronicle a certain event which from all appearances became the tipping stone that resulted in her modified schedule at school, as a way to form a mediation of sorts with her classmates. You can tell she’s in the middle of an intervention and reconciliation of some sort, but being an especially private person Hannah only reveals what she wants too at any given time. The format of the novel shifts into a raw script for a play that is actually a retrospective reel of where Hannah found herself betwixt choosing what was right for herself and being baited into a situation not of her control.
The new boy that keeps disrupting Hannah’s routine is Lucas, the transfer kid whose middle of the semester arrival has upturnt his world as much as hers. In classic fashion, he’s less than willing to share his past history with Hannah and the two of them form an unspoken friendship before they even start to realise they like each other; despite the contrary in their dialogues. It’s a slow start, each of them are struggling with trust issues, some of which can be deduced and others that are on the fringes of being explained. The fact that Lucas has a learning difficulty that opens Hannah’s world to accepting differences that she never considered previously is a positive life lesson to etch into the background. Greenway does this quite often – she gives her readers plenty to consider and think about as they are reading her story, but it’s how she’s giving them an honest appraisal of all the events that warrants the most respect.
By the end of Hannah Both Ways you can look back on the story from two different perspectives and even come to a different impression on the title, such as I had. What I felt was the strongest message of all is that your past is not your definition for your future and trust can be difficult but not impossible. Trusting your instincts to survive a period of time of strife is a good thing but giving yourself the chance to trust someone and walk outside your comfort zone is a harder lesson to learn. A lot of the interior issues of school life have changed considerably since I graduated but in other ways, nothing is different at all – people still find ways to hate you without knowing anything about you, and there will always be a bully ready to mess with your life just because they can. The best strength anyone can learn from growing up is that you can choose how you ride through your adversities and how picking the attitude you take with you can mean more than you might realise.
On creating a solid Upper YA release:
Greenway holds nothing back with Hannah – she allows her to be honestly raw on the page, spilt open to her emotional state for readers to walk through her shoes in order to respond to her out of understanding without judgement. On some levels, as you read Hannah Both Ways you can see the girl in conflict with herself and in conflict with her peers – she’s striving towards something not yet disclosed when you first meet her, giving you enough interest to continue reading her story. She’s spunky and feisty, never afraid to speak her mind nor voice her opinion even if the person she’s laying it on thick too doesn’t need the fire but could take it even if she dishes it out.
As soon as as I started reading this novel, I knew it was golden. Especially as it felt very much a novel for Upper YA readers who are seeking a story so realistically in-tune with today’s teenage climate that it would give them a story that bespeaks of real life. Although ironically or not, the tone of the story and the angst of the school bits held water for someone who graduated in the 90s too. Not much has changed, nor does it ever – only each generation thinks it does, but really, certain things improve and others get worse. I think bullying has worsened since I left school for instance and I think tolerance (and acceptance of differences) is barely understood anymore as a whole.
Being dyslexic myself, I appreciated seeing a pro-positive story-line involving a dyslexic (Lucas) who was trying to warm up to a hard to read girl in transition (Hannah). The fact that Lucas has a cousin with Asperger’s was an unexpected turn, but it’s how Greenway wrote her characters to be true to themselves and not feel forced to be threaded into the narrative I appreciated the most. Everyone felt very organic and were written with an intrinsic insightfulness that was refreshing.
A note about the vulgarity:
I marked this as ‘Upper YA’ due to the inclusions of vulgarity; Hannah is borderline at-risk due to different reasons, mostly revolving around her home life with a mother who hasn’t quite grown-up yet. In some ways, I wished her Mom had taken a more transitional step herself towards owning her life choices and choosing to raise her daughter. I recently saw a tv movie about a teenage girl and her Mom who reminded me a bit of Hannah and her Mom; especially on the aspects of whom was raising whom and who needed to grow up in order to properly advise the other. That film was Girl In-Progress (info on Wikipedia) and it was wicked brilliant.
I accepted the slight flickerings of stronger language in this novel knowing it read as Upper YA, but if I were to be completely honest, I wouldn’t advocate vulgarity for traditional YA because I don’t believe it belongs there. I will always side on ‘less is more’ when it comes to vulgarity, so blessedly the inclusions were nominal compared to others I’ve come across; but more to the point, it’s the heart of the story that staid with me more than a few disagreements about word choices.
I am especially grateful to Rebelight for offering to send out print editions which gave me the honour of reading my two titles by their publishing house! I cannot wait to see what they release next as I will most definitely be keeping my eyes out for more print releases as much as seeing which stories start to expand their catalogue of choices! Rock on, Rebelight!
Click through to follow the rest of the tour!
I’ve happily read the following by Rebelight Publishing in 2015:
Missing in Paradise by Larry Verstraete
Wonder Horse by Anita Daher
To Catch A Cat Thief by Sean Cummings
What will 2016 bring me?
I cannot wait to find out!
Thank you Rebelight for redefining MG & YA Lit!
My admiration for Rebelight Publishing is best recapped in tweets:
.@JLovesAStory #MiddleGrade | #MGLit
Positive voice of #KidsLit Missing in Paradise!#newbook by @RebelightBooks!
GO http://t.co/ph9pj4WqvH— Jorie Loves A Story (@joriestory) January 22, 2015
@JLovesAStory Do you know how great it is to have your books enjoyed by readers? If not–it's pretty darn great.:) More books to come!
— Rebelight Publishing (@RebelightBooks) March 20, 2015
.@RebelightBooks | @anitadaher
Happy #CanLit #bookmail to me! :)
I am wicked happy to be on the #blogtour for #WonderHorse!
<3 #booksbypost— Jorie Loves A Story (@joriestory) May 20, 2015
#AuthorAppreciation #writers of realistic #MGLit for #readers seeking them @MarciaStry + Larry Verstraete @RebelightBooks + @Rachelleburk :)
— Jorie Loves A Story (@joriestory) June 2, 2015
@JLovesAStory @Rosie_Greenway @RebelightBooks Love, love, love #HannahBothWays can't wait til it's released.
— Melinda Friesen (@MelindaFriesen) July 23, 2015
.@gabegoldstone Thx for your interest in To Catch A Cat Thief! Purrfect for #readers who are cattifically keen on #MGLit! @saskatoonauthor
— Jorie Loves A Story (@joriestory) November 14, 2015
This marks my fourth blog tour for Rebelight Publishing courtesy:
Reader Interactive Question:
What do you appreciate the most about Realistic YA? What types of story-lines do you wish would be explored that might not have become highlighted by today’s writers? What do you appreciate about introspective lead characters who are struggling to right their sails?
{SOURCES: Book Cover of “Hannah Both Ways”, the Chapter by Chapter badge, the Book Synopsis and the Author Biography were provided by Chapter by Chapter and used by permission. Ruminations & Impressions Book Review Banner created by Jorie in Canva. Photo Credit: Unsplash Public Domain Photographer Sergey Zolkin. Post dividers badge by Fun Stuff for Your Blog via Pure Imagination. Comment box badge created by Jorie in Canva. Tweets embedded due to codes provided by Twitter. Jorie Loves A Story Cuppa Book Love Awards Badge created by Jorie in Canva. Coffee and Tea Clip Art Set purchased on Etsy; made by rachelwhitetoo.}
Copyright © Jorie Loves A Story, 2015.
I’m a social reader | I tweet as I read:
#HannahBothWays Teen romance, yes, but plenty of adolescent angst gets in the way of Hannah's HEA… pic.twitter.com/7wkVxFpJoh
— Rosie Greenway (@Rosie_Greenway) November 25, 2015
Wicked excited to be on #HannahBothWays #blogtour! Seriously loving each #newbook by @RebelightBooks @Rosie_Greenway https://t.co/2HGxO6hLY1
— Jorie Loves A Story (@joriestory) November 30, 2015
I'm currently reading Hannah Both Ways on @riffle. Have you read it? https://t.co/Ah8LOdfq4I
— Jorie Loves A Story (@joriestory) November 30, 2015
IF you want to pick up a #newbook w/in #YALit whose honesty & rawness of teenage angst grabs you at page 1 READ #HannahBothWays; I am! :)
— Jorie Loves A Story (@joriestory) November 30, 2015
.@RebelightBooks Excellent #YALit by #CanLit @Rosie_Greenway raises bar on #realisticfiction https://t.co/aKMKv9KsdE pic.twitter.com/rnAcu2wxAT
— Jorie Loves A Story (@joriestory) November 30, 2015
.@MondayBlogs This #MondayBlogs I tucked myself inside #RealisticYA w/ a heart of depth & a clarity of teenage angst https://t.co/aKMKv9KsdE
— Jorie Loves A Story (@joriestory) November 30, 2015
Comments on Twitter:
Fantastic review, Jorie, thank you! Glad you found HBW realistic and relatable! And I <3 Lucas too…#Bookboyfriend https://t.co/wIaLgULnL1
— Rosie Greenway (@Rosie_Greenway) November 30, 2015
"As soon as I started reading this novel, I knew it was golden." https://t.co/7yh1RyP710 @Rosie_Greenway @joriestory pic.twitter.com/G8aLj5PGN1
— Rebelight Publishing (@RebelightBooks) November 30, 2015
What a stunning cover!
This book sounds amazing! I will have to look into it. I really like realistic YA like this, and I tend toward it. I read younger YA and MG with my kiddo, but I really love upper, realistic YA for myself.
Hallo, Hallo Savanah,
Would you believe in the years since [2017] and now [2020] this publisher closed their doors!? I truly found them a bright shining light in the world of YA Literature and felt such a sad loss for their authors and the stories they were publishing. They had a way of seeking out realistic stories and the authors who could write those stories with a convicting edge. This one is definitely in your wheelhouse of joy – very keenly placed in what I would consider Upper Realistic YA! I hope you’ve had a chance to gather a copy and find the story gripped you as dearly as it did me!
I formerly apologised for my grievous error in allowing so much time to slip past me between the time you left me your comments in [2017] til now on The Summer of Chasing Mermaids review; I can only hope you’ll receive these notes tonight and realise I appreciated the time you took to read my blog and to leave me some of the best commentary that year! (or since)