Lisa Loves Literature: synesthesia

Showing posts with label synesthesia. Show all posts

Sunday, November 11, 2018

Blog Tour Review with Giveaway: The Color of Lies by C.J. Lyons

Book info:

Title: The Color of Lies

Author: C.J. Lyons

Publisher: Blink

Release Date: November 6, 2018

Genre: Young Adult -- Contemporary, Mystery, Thriller

Source: ARC received from publisher which did not influence my review in any way

My rating: 5 stars

Synopsis:

From New York Times and USA Today bestselling author CJ Lyons comes The Color of Lies, a world drenched in color and mystery.

High school senior Ella Cleary has always been good at reading people. Her family has a rare medical condition called synesthesia that scrambles the senses—her Gram Helen sees every sound, and her uncle Joe can literally taste words. Ella’s own synesthesia manifests itself as the ability to see colors that reveal people’s true emotions…until she meets a guy she just can’t read.

Alec is a mystery to Ella, a handsome, enigmatic young journalist who makes her feel normal for the first time in her life. That is, until he reveals the real reason why he sought her out—he wants to learn the truth behind her parents’ deaths, the parents that Ella had always been told died in a fire. Alec turns Ella’s world upside down when he tells her their deaths were definitely not an accident.

After learning her entire life has been a lie, Ella doesn’t know who she can trust or even who she really is. With her adoptive family keeping secrets and the evidence mixing fact and fiction, the only way for Ella to learn the truth about her past is to find a killer.

Perfect for fans of Caroline B. Cooney, Ally Carter, and Jennifer Brown, The Color of Lies blurs the lines between black-and-white facts and the kaleidoscope of reality.

BOOK LINKS

Amazon

My Review:

I am a big fan of this author's YA books: Broken and Watched. And I am also very intrigued by the whole synesthesia thing. I even have a really good friend who has the condition. I remember first reading about synesthesia when I was in college. Studying to be a science teacher, I had a subscription to Discover magazine, which I would read cover to cover. That story on people who always thought of certain numbers having a specific color, or sometimes words had a taste to them, that story stuck with me. This story was a really good one that used a few different types of synesthesia symptoms for characters in a family, since it is considered to be genetic. I feel like this author with her medical background is able to be very realistic about things like this disorder, the same as she was with the genetic heart defect in Broken. But we also had at the heart of this story a very good mystery. To me, this book is right up there with many adult mystery titles that have a medical aspect to them. It reminds me in a way of the good old fashioned Robin Cook novels. Less complicated and conspiracy theory-ish, but definitely as good of a mystery with things you know are coming, but don't always see completely until the bad guys begin giving their plots away. I guess that makes sense since the author does write those same books for adults. In this case I guess my point is that she does this well within the YA genre as well.

Now I had a few questions about how it all wrapped up, and if there was more faking going on than just identities. And maybe those things were actually touched upon, but I was at the exciting action point of the book and probably reading faster to get to find out how we could keep both Ella and her friends and family safe. Other questions I pondered when I had to put the book down to go back to work included wondering if schools have synesthesia as something they might use to put a student on an IEP, or Individualized Education Plan, so that they could get help from the special education teachers. Because it seems to me that it could cause some learning environments to not be the best suited in some cases. At some point I mean to reach out to those types of teachers in my school just to find out for myself about this very topic.

Highly recommended book, one I will be ordering for my school library with future budget money.

About the Author:

New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of over forty novels, former pediatric ER doctor CJ Lyons has lived the life she writes about in her cutting edge Thrillers with Heart.

Two times winner of the International Thriller Writers coveted Thriller Award, CJ has been called a "master within the genre" (Pittsburgh Magazine) and her work has been praised as "breathtakingly fast-paced" and "riveting" (Publishers Weekly) with "characters with beating hearts and three dimensions" (Newsday).

Learn more about CJ's Thrillers with Heart at www.CJLyons.net

Twitter: https://twitter.com/cjlyonswriter

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cj.lyons

Website: https://cjlyons.net/

Giveaway:

Prize: 5 Copies of The Color of Lies by CJ Lyons (USA only)

Starts: 11/5/18

Ends: 11/16/18

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Check out the rest of the tour HERE.

Monday, January 18, 2016

Shade Me Rainbow Blitz and Giveaway: Orange You Excited to Read My Review?

Sorry for the bad pun in the title, I just couldn't resist. I was so excited to get to be a part of this tour that is hosted by Irish Banana Tours, and to represent orange, because orange is one of my two favorite colors. Orange is the color that when I see something orange anywhere my eyes are immediately drawn to it. My 3 year old niece knows it is my favorite color, in fact she will tell people when I'm not around that orange is my favorite color. The last school that I taught at, for 14 years, our school colors were orange and green. You can bet I had lots of things in school colors to wear! Now before I get into my review of this awesome book, I want to share a few of my favorite orange things. Of course first of all, just look at my blog. I had to have it orange!

Anything that has the creamsicle, or sometimes called dreamsicle flavor, I will automatically LOVE it! There was even a flavored bottled water about 20 years ago with that flavor that I couldn't get enough of. I love the orange slice candy, and anything orange flavored. Pretty much the only vegetable I like, even though technically it isn't a vegetable, is a carrot. Halloween is really my favorite holiday, during my favorite month of the year, and that is partly because the color orange is what you think of for that month and holiday. One of my favorite perfumes for the longest time that I used to get lots of compliments on, and that I still wear occasionally, is Clinique Happy. I do like oranges themselves, and orange juice, but figured that was too obvious to add to my collage.

ABOUT SHADE ME:

Nikki Kill does not see the world like everyone else. In her eyes, happiness is pink, sadness is a mixture of brown and green, and lies are gray. Thanks to a rare phenomenon called synesthesia, Nikki’s senses overlap, in a way that both comforts and overwhelms her.

Always an outsider, just one ‘D’ shy of flunking out, Nikki’s life is on the fast track to nowhere until the night a mysterious call lights her phone up bright orange—the color of emergencies. It’s the local hospital. They need Nikki to identify a Jane Doe who is barely hanging on to life after a horrible attack.

The victim is Peyton Hollis, a popular girl from Nikki’s school who Nikki hardly knows. One thing is clear: Someone wants Peyton dead. But why? And why was Nikki’s cell the only number in Peyton’s phone?

As she tries to decipher the strange kaleidoscope of clues, Nikki finds herself thrust into the dark, glittering world of the ultra-rich Hollis family, and drawn towards Peyton’s handsome, never-do-well older brother Dru. While Nikki’s colors seem to help her unravel the puzzle, what she can’t see is that she may be falling into a trap. The only truth she can be sure of is that death is a deep, pulsing crimson.

LINKS: Goodreads | Amazon | Barnes and Noble | Indiebound | The Book Depository

My review:
I am so grateful for getting to be on this tour, and I have to say thanks to Edelweiss and Katherine Tegen Books for allowing me to read an e-galley of the title. I have to say how much this story really blew me away. There were tons of twists and turns, and so much excitement as I read. I loved the character of Nikki, well, except for the smoking, that part I wasn't a fan of. But hey, the author is known for writing very realistic, and at times hard to read stories, such as the first one of her books that I read, Hate List. The first thing we learn about Nikki is that her synesthesia, how she sees colors, is keeping her from doing well in school. She's a loner, and has an ex-boyfriend that can't seem to take the hint. Her mother was murdered years ago, and her dad leaves her alone all the time when he goes to do photo shoots out of town. That was one thing that was hard for me to understand. If your wife has been murdered, why would you not be overprotective of your daughter? I know that sometimes the reasoning though is the opposite, and it is hard for that person to be around the family that reminds of them of the loved one they've lost. There are so many details hidden in each step of Nikki's search for the answers behind her all of a sudden connection to Peyton. Each one opens up a door to a past that Nikki had no idea about. As I figured from the beginning, there is probably going to be a connection to the murder of Nikki's mother and the whole family drama she becomes involved in with Peyton's family.

All the characters were so great. The cop really fit in well to the story. Peyton's brother Dru, the whole time you're wondering, is he really into Nikki, or is he just trying to cover up for what actually happened, and is keeping Nikki close to make sure nothing gets out. And the family, wow, the family is so steeped in all things bad. The closer you get to the end, the more you begin to see that Peyton may not have been the girl that everyone saw her as, the popular mean girl of the school. When the connection between Peyton and Nikki becomes clear, you spend the end of the book hoping that Nikki can beat the clock to save Peyton from what has happened to her, as well as bring the guilty parties to justice. The way it ended I was glad to see that this is book 1, as there are so many more things that I need to know. I can also say that I could totally see this as a tv series. It'd be a show that I'd watch!

One thing that really drew me to the book was the synesthesia aspect. I have a friend that has this, and it is interesting to learn more about it. I've been fascinated by this condition since I first read about it in a Discover magazine several years ago. I feel the way it was put forward in the story gives a pretty good look into how it might be for someone with this. And along with my favorite color, orange, don't you love how the orange is so bright and pretty on the cover?

ABOUT JENNIFER BROWN:

Two-time winner of the Erma Bombeck Global Humor Award (2005 and 2006), Jennifer's weekly humor column appeared in The Kansas City Star for over four years, until she gave it up to be a full-time young adult novelist.

Jennifer's debut novel, HATE LIST (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, 2009) received three starred reviews and was selected as an ALA Best Book for Young Adults, a VOYA "Perfect Ten," and a School Library Journal Best Book of the Year. HATE LIST also won the Michigan Library Association's Thumbs Up! Award, the Louisiana Teen Readers Choice award, the 2012 Oklahoma Sequoyah Book Award, was an honorable mention for the 2011 Arkansas Teen Book Award, is a YALSA 2012 Popular Paperback, received spots on the Texas Library Association's Taysha's high school reading list as well as the Missouri Library Association's Missouri Gateway Awards list, and has been chosen to represent the state of Missouri in the 2012 National Book Festival in Washington, DC. Jennifer's second novel, BITTER END, (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, 2011) received starred reviews from Publishers Weekly and VOYA and is listed on the YALSA 2012 Best Fiction for Young Adults list and is a 2012 Taysha's high school reading list pick as well.

Jennifer writes and lives in the Kansas City, Missouri area, with her husband and three children.

LINKS: Website | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram

I've met Jennifer before, I live in Kansas City as well, so when she came to do a signing at the bookstore where I work, I had to meet her.