Review: This Is Sarah by Ally Malinenko

This Is Sarah
By Ally Malinenko
Publisher: BookFish Books
Format: eBook
Source: Author

To Sum It Up: Colin Leventhal has been fighting to hold his life together since the night his girlfriend, Sarah Evans, vanished. Everyone keeps telling him that he needs to accept that Sarah is gone and he has to move on with his life, but Colin clings to a thread of hope that she’s still alive. Meanwhile, right next door to Colin, Sarah’s younger sister, Claire, is also dealing with the loss of Sarah, mostly on her own because her parents have retreated into their own grief.

Review: Sometimes you read the blurb for a book and you just know that it’s going to be a really, really good read. My instincts were 100% on the mark with This Is Sarah. It’s the type of novel your eyes and mind want to devour in a single sitting, which is totally feasible. Don’t let the book’s compact size, however, fool you into thinking that it’s short on emotional punch because by the time I finished reading it, my heart had been thoroughly hammered. And then some.

Sarah Evans is the character who lends her name to the book’s title, and the impact of her disappearance on her boyfriend, Colin Leventhal, and younger sister, Claire, drives the novel. Both Colin and Claire narrate the story, and it’s through their eyes that you learn who Sarah was, the Sarah they loved and the Sarah who’s left a chasm in their hearts and lives that’s seemingly impossible to fill. Believe me when I say your own heart will break over and over again for the searing loss that Colin and Claire feel and what they experience in the aftermath of Sarah going missing. Claire practically becomes invisible to her parents, who are facing their own difficulties coping with the tragedy that has struck their family and so are not in an ideal position to offer comfort to their remaining child.

As for Colin, his chapters are utterly, utterly, utterly gut-wrenching. That is not an exaggeration. His life has fractured into a billion pieces. Sarah was his world, and the absolutely desperate hope that he has that she’s alive is his only oxygen. His pain is so brutal and raw that it’s not far into the novel before you, too, hope Sarah is okay, if only to see Colin stop hurting so much. This is a young man with his whole life ahead of him who should be looking forward to going to college instead of calling his missing girlfriend’s phone multiple times a day to hear her voicemail greeting. Almost everyone around Colin—his parents, his friends—thinks he’s headed for a breakdown, if he’s not there already. As you read, you understand where their alarm comes from, yet you also see where the things he does make sense to him in his state of mind. Colin is a meticulously crafted character, as are all of the characters, and so real that it’s very easy to forget he exists in the pages of a book.

This is one of the most realistic contemporary YA novels I’ve read, and that’s because of the writing. The prose in this book—it’s beautiful, bordering on poetic. Not a single word is extraneous. As somber as the tone of the book is, it never feels overwrought or cloying. Every line of dialogue sounds like it would be spoken by an actual person. In keeping with its realism, This Is Sarah doesn’t offer any easy answers, and that’s just another reason why I loved it, even as it broke the vital organ that’s responsible for that particular emotion.

All in All: Just perfect. That is all.

This Is Sarah Blog Tour: Excerpt

Today I'm thrilled to be a part of the blog tour for Ally Malinenko's upcoming contemporary novel, This Is Sarah! Read on below for an excerpt from the book, and be sure to add it to your TBR list!

This Is Sarah
By Ally Malinenko
Publisher: BookFish Books
Goodreads

Synopsis: When Colin Leventhal leaned out his bedroom window on the night of May 12th and said goodbye to his girlfriend, he never expected it would be forever. But when Sarah Evans goes missing that night, Colin's world unravels as he transforms from the boyfriend next door to the main police suspect. Then one year later, at her memorial service, Colin makes a phone call that could change everything. Is it possible that Sarah is still alive? And if so, how far will he go to bring her back?

As Colin struggles with this possibility, across the street, Sarah’s little sister, Claire learns how to navigate the strange new landscape of life without her sister. While her parents fall apart, Claire remains determined to keep going, even if it kills her.

THIS IS SARAH serves as a meditation on loss, love, and what it means to say goodbye.

** Excerpt **

I get up early to run, because it’s easier in the morning. There's no one up yet at five am, and the streets belong to me. I don’t even bring music anymore. I only want to hear the steady thwack of my sneakers on the pavement, the rustle of leaves in the breeze and the huff of air coming out of my lungs. It sets up a rhythm that allows my brain to shut off for a while so my mind stays empty.

Not thinking feels good. It’s one of the few things that still feels good.

I crest the hill at the top of Cedarhurst and pick up speed going down. My lungs feel clean and clear, and I think about sprinting the last five or six blocks back to my driveway. My energy seems a little low, but I figured I can probably push it.

The sound of my feet hitting the pavement intensifies and I pump my arms hard, small tears forming in my eyes from the wind. I clear my mind. I am no longer Colin. I’m just muscle, tissue and bone; a complex and delicate machine pushing its way against gravity and inertia, covering distance on this rock floating in the darkness of an ever-expanding space.

When Claire pulls her bike alongside me I nearly jump out of my skin. Where the hell did she come from? She pedals hard, riding off the seat, her blonde hair whipping back. She passes me and looks back and smiles. As the distance between us grows, I’m overcome with loss, and a sort of panic, like I need to catch up to her. I’m not sure what it is, but I watch her move away from me, her blonde hair streaming, her legs working the pedals and every muscle in my body screams to catch her.

Suddenly Claire is everything in the world, everything beautiful, alive, peaceful, and good, and it’s all getting away from me.

The farther she gets from me, the closer she gets to the monsters and all I want in the world is for Claire to always be safe.

Jesus Christ, I just want to be able to save one of them.

She looks back at me once and smiles before pumping the pedals again. In that moment, that small bright moment, her hair and her smile reflecting the early morning sun, she looks just like Sarah. Just like Claire looked that day in the hallway.

Suddenly I feel so hollow and empty, carved out like the husk of some dead cicada. I watch her get away from me and feel more lost than ever before. She rounds the bend and disappears from my line of sight, something inside of me snaps and I stumble forward. My feet now clumsy, my balance thrown off, until I stop, bent, heaving, coughing, spitting foam, my heart wild inside me. In my head, an image forms of Sarah when I made her laugh so hard she nearly choked on her sandwich at the diner.

That was Sarah.

Sarah and me, in a moment we won’t have again. A moment that was once real but now feels like it belonged to another life. Neither of us foresaw it ending this way.

The year before or the week before or the day before. We never saw it coming.

If I knew when she stood on that driveway, staring up at me, with me hanging out of the window looking down at her, if I knew, I would have told her everything.

About Ally Malinenko

Ally Malinenko is the author of the poetry collection The Wanting Bone (Six Gallery Press) and the children's fantasy Lizzy Speare and the Cursed Tomb (Antenna Books). She lives in Brooklyn with her husband.

Website | Twitter | BookFish Books

Cover Reveal: This Is Sarah by Ally Malinenko

This Is Sarah
By Ally Malinenko
Publisher: BookFish Books

Cover design by Anita B. Carroll at Race-Point.com

Synopsis: When Colin Leventhal leaned out his bedroom window on the night of May 12th and said goodbye to his girlfriend, he never expected it would be forever. But when Sarah Evans goes missing that night, Colin's world unravels as he is transformed from the boyfriend next door to the main police suspect. Then one year later, at her memorial service, Colin makes a phone call that could change everything. Is it possible that Sarah is still alive? And if so, what is Colin willing to do to bring her back?

And as Colin struggles with this possibility, across the street, Sarah’s little sister Claire learns how to navigate the strange new landscape that is life without her sister. Even as her parents fall apart, Claire is determined to keep on going. Even if it kills her.

This Is Sarah is a meditation on loss, love, and what it means to say goodbye.

Ally Malinenko is here today sharing the AWESOME cover for her YA novel, This Is Sarah, and giving us a glimpse into her morning. Welcome, Ally!

Thanks! So, here's what my mornings look like.

The alarm goes off at 5 am. No wait, that’s not right. It’s before 5 am. My husband nudges me and I murmur five more minutes, please, just five more minutes burying my head under the blanket. Then June, the tabby cat, starts crying. And not your usual meows – these are ear splitting, I’m-dying-give-me-food-now-you-puny-humans sort of cries. Really intense End of the World Ragnarok sort of stuff.

We stumble up and out of bed. Coffee on. Teapot on. Cat fed. Pee. Computer on. Radio on to classical station. Teapot whistles – oh teapot why must you be so loud!

Then I sit in my closet (literally) and write. Sometimes I write poems or stories, provided I managed to think of an idea since yesterday morning. Most times I go back to the current novel. I read through yesterday’s writing. June comes in. She climbs into the empty comic book box on the floor and curls up to sleep. Good. This lasts seventeen seconds. Then she’s trying to climb into my lap. I give in, reading through yesterday’s writing. She stands on my lap and meows at me. I bend my arms around her to rewrite stuff and wonder how one person can switch tenses that quickly. I catch typos. I fix them.

I write. I put June down. I think about my main character – how angry he is right now facing this pain alone. I put words in his mouth. I read them out loud. I cringe. I delete them. The cat jumps up on my lap again. I finish my tea and make more. I write some new dialogue. I look at the clock. The morning is going too fast. I have to get ready for work soon. I write some more. I check my email again. I put June down. She cries. I delete three paragraphs of what I just wrote. I yawn. I get more tea.

I write. I reread it. I cringe less. I write more. I reread it. I skip ahead and jot down notes for a future scene. June cries and jumps back in my lap. My husband comes by, reminds me of what time it is. I squeeze out another page but don’t have time to reread it. I save my work, shut off the radio and get ready for work. I hope tomorrow morning will be just as good. June meows. She hopes so too.

About the Author:

Ally Malinenko is the author of the poetry collection, The Wanting Bone (Six Gallery Press), and the children’s novel Lizzy Speare and the Cursed Tomb (Antenna Books). This Is Sarah is her first YA book. Ally lives in Brooklyn with her husband and a very ridiculous tabby cat. She blogs at allymalinenko.com and you can follow her on Twitter at @allymalinenko.