Review: Not Otherwise Specified by Hannah Moskowitz

Title: Not Otherwise Specified
Author: Hannah Moskowitz
Publisher: Simon Pulse
Release date: March 3rd 2015
Pages: 425
Genre: Young Adult contemporary
Source: Bought
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Etta is tired of dealing with all of the labels and categories that seem so important to everyone else in her small Nebraska hometown.

Everywhere she turns, someone feels she's too fringe for the fringe. Not gay enough for the Dykes, her ex-clique, thanks to a recent relationship with a boy; not tiny and white enough for ballet, her first passion; and not sick enough to look anorexic (partially thanks to recovery). Etta doesn’t fit anywhere— until she meets Bianca, the straight, white, Christian, and seriously sick girl in Etta’s therapy group. Both girls are auditioning for Brentwood, a prestigious New York theater academy that is so not Nebraska. Bianca seems like Etta’s salvation, but how can Etta be saved by a girl who needs saving herself?

My rating: 5 out of 5 stars

I've loved every Hannah Moskowitz book I've read, but I think this one might be my new favorite. Even though it's nowhere close to the saddest or funniest book I've read, Etta's voice immersed me in the story and made me feel everything so intensely. I read this book on a flight, and I kept getting stares from the guy next to me because I would laugh out loud and randomly start crying while reading. Hannah Moskowitz's books, and this one in particular, feel very personal to me and always elicit a lot of emotions because they're such important and powerful stories.

I am so happy to finally read a book with a bisexual main character - isn't it sad that, out of all of the books I've read, Not Otherwise Specified is the first and only one with a main character who calls herself bisexual!? The way the novel demonstrates the struggles of bisexual people, of not being accepted by the straight or the gay community, is so, so important. This book gets all of the feminist points for the ways it explores gender and sexuality; it's so deep within feminism that it questions dominant feminist ideas from within (if that makes any sense), complexifying issues of gender and sexuality in ways that I loved. Etta has a very nuanced perception of these issues (as well as her race), which makes for a very honest and realistic portrayal: for example, when Bianca struggles with reconciling her brother's homosexuality with her religion, Etta steps up to defend her from those who are calling her homophobic. She's a lot more open-minded about closed-mindedness than I am, which makes for a very nuanced discussion and portrayal of these issues.

In addition with struggling to be accepted because of her bisexuality, Etta is also recovering from an eating disorder. I really loved reading about someone who is actually recovering: I've read tons of eating disorder books, but they always end when the character makes the decision to get better, without actually exploring what recovery is like and showing the ups and downs that can happen along the way. The portrayal of Etta's recovery is honest and real, and I also loved reading about Bianca in this context: the dynamics between two girls at different stages of their eating orders were fascinating. 

Then there's the element of dance and musical theatre. I can't judge how realistic this part is - all my knowledge of ballet school and all of that comes from other YA books, and in those books it always seems harder and more competitive to get to the point where Etta is, so I don't know how realistic it is for her to be getting by the way she is. But I didn't really care because I loved this part of the novel, too. Etta's relationship with ballet is complex, but her passion shines through. Her decision at the end is not what I expected, but I loved it.

But none of these elements are really the main focus of the novel; Not Otherwise Specified is just about Etta, and Etta refuses to be defined by any one of these things. Etta's incredible voice is what carries this whole novel. She is such a real person that she just jumps off the page, and I'm convinced Etta exists in the real world somewhere. Hannah Moskowitz's signature stream-of-consciousness writing lets you think and live along with Etta. She makes terrible decisions sometimes, but they make sense when you're inside her head. Her humor always shines through, and I just identified with her voice so much. 

The secondary characters are great, too. I especially loved Etta's relationships with Bianca and Rachel. Based on the back cover, I had assumed this would be more of a romance between Etta and Bianca, but it's more of a complex friendship than anything romantic. The feelings Etta has for Bianca and Rachel are complicated and explored in depth. I also loved James, Mason, and the rest of the cast, but Bianca and Rachel were the ones who intrigued me the most, asides from Etta.

The ending made me so happy I cried. I can't really explain it and it wasn't what I was expecting, but it fits so perfectly with the rest of the novel. I don't even know why, but it was so good that it had me crying for a while after I had finished the novel, for no specific reason other than that this book felt very personal to me and is such a powerfully moving story. If you've liked Hannah Moskowitz's previous books, you'll definitely love Not Otherwise Specified, and if you haven't, you should definitely give her books a try. Her books are always so personal to me and so moving that recommending them to others feels like giving away a piece of myself, but her books are so important that they need to be read.

Review: Break by Hannah Moskowitz

Title: Break
Author: Hannah Moskowitz
Publisher: Simon Pulse
Release date: August 25th 2009
Pages: 262
Genre: Young Adult contemporary
Source: Bought
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Jonah is on a mission to break every bone in his body. Everyone knows that broken bones grow back stronger than they were before. And Jonah wants to be stronger—needs to be stronger—because everything around him is falling apart. Breaking, and then healing, is Jonah’s only way to cope with the stresses of home, girls, and the world on his shoulders.
When Jonah's self-destructive spiral accelerates and he hits rock bottom, will he find true strength or surrender to his breaking point?

My rating: 4 out of 5 stars

I loved Hannah Moskowitz's newer releases, but for some reason I'd been holding off on reading her debut. Both because just generally, it can be kind of disappointing to have seen what a writer can do now, and then go back to their possibly-not-as-strong debut, and just because of the subject matter - I like darker YA books, but the whole bone-breaking thing just seemed a bit too disturbing. But I never should have doubted Hannah Moskowitz - while it's not going to be my favorite of her books (that's Gone, Gone, Gone), I did really enjoy Break.

The whole bone-breaking thing seemed kind of absurd at first, but within the context of the novel, it totally makes sense. It's painful to read about at times, but Hannah Moskowitz's writing makes it so compelling you can't even think about putting the book down. And of course, the bone-breaking storyline isn't all that Break is about. This seems to be a pattern for Hannah Moskowitz's books: they're usually marketed for one plot, but then turn out to be so much more. And if you thought Jonah breaking his own bones was intense, it's got nothing on the rest of this novel.

More so than the bone-breaking, Jonah's family is the main focus of the novel. (Although, of course, that wouldn't have made for a particularly intriguing back cover.) The family set-up is the most unique I've read about in a long time. I don't even want to talk about it much because I think it works best when you discover the intricacies of the family dynamics on your own. Jesse and Jonah have an incredibly complex brother-brother relationship, proving once again that Hannah Moskowitz is the best at writing sibling relationships. I wish the relationship between the parents had been explored a bit more, but all in all, the whole family is fully-developed and impressively layered.

My only complaint would be the ending, which felt rushed to me. I understand that Hannah Moskowitz wanted to end with the first step towards healing, but it left so many questions unanswered. And not just the what-will-happen-next kind of questions (which would be to be expected), but also simple questions about the plot, like what was all of that with the volunteer that helped Jonah? What's going on with Charlotte? I get why Hannah Moskowitz chose to end the novel this way, but I really wanted these questions to be explored more.

While you can tell that Hannah Moskowitz's writing isn't quite as developed yet as it is in some of her later novels, Break is a really impressive debut. If you're looking for a dark, disturbing but ultimately hopeful novel with intriguing characters and complex relationships, Break is the novel for you!

Review: Gone, Gone, Gone by Hannah Moskowitz

Title: Gone, Gone, Gone
Author: Hannah Moskowitz
Publisher: Simon Pulse
Release date: April 17th 2012
Pages: 288
Genre: Contemporary YA
Source: Bought
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It's a year after 9/11. Sniper shootings throughout the D.C. area have everyone on edge, trying to make sense of the random acts of violence. Meanwhile, Craig and Lio are just trying to make sense of their lives. 
Craig's crushing on quiet, distant Lio, and preoccupied with what it meant when Lio kissed him...and if he'll do it again...and if kissing Lio will help him finally get over his ex-boyfriend, Cody. 
Lio feels most alive when he's with Craig. He forgets about his broken family, his dead brother, and the messed up world. But being with Craig means being vulnerable, and Lio will have to decide whether love is worth the risk.

My rating: 5 out of 5 stars


Oh. My. God. Hannah Moskowitz's books make my brain explode. In a good way.


I read Invincible Summer a while ago, and I could see, objectively, that it was good, but it was a little too... weird for me. Maybe it's just because the cover had me expecting a fun beach read, and the actual book took me by surprise with its depth, but I didn't know what to make of it. It definitely had an impact, but I couldn't decide whether I loved it or hated it. But after Gone, Gone, Gone, I know, without a doubt, that Hannah Moskowitz is one heck of a writer. Maybe I was expecting it to be deep and literary, and that's why it worked this time, but wow - this book is so good.


Hannah Moskowitz's writing is incredible. It's lyrical, powerful, stark, beautiful, and... wow. I'm sorry, but I'm having a hard time coming up with words other than wow - Gone, Gone, Gone has left me a little incoherent. Anyways, the word that comes to mind when I think of her writing is unfiltered. It's like we're living right inside a person's head and hearing each and every one of their thoughts. These characters are so real - there are few characters I can think of that felt like such real people. I can't explain it, but the way Craig and Lio think... Like, they're thinking about something random and unimportant and then going "Wait. Why am I thinking about this?" and oh my God I just loved it so much because that's how I think. That's just one example - there are so many more times when I felt like Hannah Moskowitz had literally gotten inside my brain and written down the messed up stuff that goes on in there. And maybe that sounds weird, but it totally works.

Speaking of, I love how messed up the people in this book are. That sounds so wrong, but I do.  I kind of stalk Hannah Moskowitz, so I kow a little about her as a person, too, not just as an author. And, well, she's messed up. That probably sounds rude, but I kind of think she wouldn't mind me saying that because that's how awesome she is. And it just makes me so happy to know that a messed up person can write a book about messed up characters that can help other messed up people (=me) deal with their messed-up-ness. It made me so proud to be a bookish person! I know I'm probably not making much sense but I honestly don't even care because this book was such a personal experience for me - it felt like Hannah Moskowitz wrote this book just for me. 


You know how a book is even more special to you when it's set somewhere you've been? Yeah, that's another bonus for Gone, Gone, Gone. I wasn't in DC at the time of the sniper shootings, but I moved there a little over a year later, so I kind of feel like I know a little about that, too. I used to go to the gas station where one person got shot, and a friend of mine lives on a street where another person got shot, and I know that doesn't make any of this mine, and I feel wrong talking about it like it does (now I'm kind of going into the content of the book, but whatever), but... still. It made the book even more perfect, to me.


I think I've gone off about myself enough - I should probably get back to the book. I loveloveloved the characters in Gone, Gone, Gone. They're all so complex and unique and perfect. Lio and Craig both have a special spot in my heart now, and I could especially relate to Lio. I don't even know what to say about them other than I'm sure they are actual people out there someone because no one could make something like that up - they're that real. 


Okay, I'm sorry. I know this review is terrible, but I kind of don't care. I usually write my reviews primarily for other readers, but with this one, I feel like I wrote it just for me. Reading this book and writing this review has been weirdly personal, and kind of cathartic. I loved Gone, Gone, Gone because of the powerful writing, the incredibly realistic characters, and the raw emotion it  evoked in me. It feels weird to recommend this book, since that seems like inviting people to read about how messed up I am, to read what goes on inside my head because, well, this book just gets me. But I don't want to keep anyone from reading such a great book, so yeah, I do recommend it. Gone, Gone, Gone is amazing, and I want to hug it and never let it go, and I want to re-read it immediately. And I also want to re-read Invincible Summer, now that I know what I'm in for. And of course anything else Hannah Moskowitz has written/will write. And now I'm just going to shut up because I'm not making any sense because God I loved this book so much.

Have you ever read a book that felt so much like the author had gone inside your head to write his or her characters, a book that GOT you like no other?

Review: Invincible Summer by Hannah Moskowitz

Title: Invincible Summer
Author: Hannah Moskowitz
Publisher: Simon Pulse
Pages: 269
Release date: April 19th 2011
Genre: Contemporary YA
Source: Bought at The Book Depository
Find out more: Amazon ; Goodreads

Goodreads description:

Noah’s happier than I’ve seen him in months. So I’d be an awful brother to get in the way of that. It’s not like I have some relationship with Melinda. It was just a kiss. Am I going to ruin Noah’s happiness because of a kiss?
Across four sun-kissed, drama-drenched summers at his family’s beach house, Chase is falling in love, falling in lust, and trying to keep his life from falling apart. But some girls are addictive....

First sentence:

Gideon keeps falling down.

My rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Oh, how I've been dreading writing this review... Some aspects of Invincible Summer are amazing, and others, while I know they're well-done, just didn't work for me. Really, I think any star rating would be justified.

One thing I do know is that the cover and synopsis are very misleading. The cover makes this seem like a fun, guilty-pleasure, feel-good, beach-read kind of book, which is not the case at all - Invincible Summer deals with lots of serious topics. Even though I hate writing summaries, I'm going to write my own for Invincible Summer - I don't think you'd get what I'm talking about from just the official description.

Invincible Summer deals with four summers of Chase's life, the summer he turns 14 to the summer he turns 18. Each year he goes to the same beach with his family, consisting of his pregnant mom and his dad, who are struggling with their marriage; Noah, his older brother, who's always running away from the family's problems; Claudia, the younger sister just turning into a teenager; and Gideon, the youngest of the kids, who is deaf. Chase's family always goes to the beach at the same time as another family, consisting of the parents; Bella, who has a crush on Chase; her twin brother, Shannon, who's friends with Chase and has a crush on Claudia; and Melinda. Melinda is kind of hard to explain. Both Chase and Noah have sex with her, and she has some issues of her own but that aren't really addressed until the end. I think that covers it, but I might have missed something - there are a lot of story lines, and, well, I suck at summarizing.

Anyways, for my actual review, I'll start with the good stuff, which is mainly the writing. Hannah Moskowitz's style is minimalistic and sparse, but it's beautiful and amazing, just so... poetic, I guess you could say. That helped convey raw, honest emotions. I also love how all the storylines fit together, making sure there's something in there everyone will like.

I loved the characters in Invincible Summer. Chase is a good narrator and easy to relate to, most of the time. The rest of the characters are fully-developed and complex. Gideon is probably my favorite character - he's adorable. While I didn't particularly like Noah, his way of dealing with things is interesting to read about. I didn't get Melinda's character at first, but later on, when we got to know about her past, I felt like I understood her better and got why she acted so strangely. I love how multi-dimensional the characters are, all with problems of their own that somehow work together. The only character I felt like I never really got to know is Bella - it seemed like she's just kind of there, but the reader never found out too much about her, which I thought was kind of strange.

Some of the reationships, though, just seemed weird to me. The fact that Shannon, who's 15 at the beginning of the book, has a crush Claudia, who's 11 at the beginning, kind of creeped me out. Four years might not be that big of an age difference for adults, but for 15- and 11-year-olds, it's huge. Chase's need for Noah felt a little overdone - I don't think the way that Chase misses Noah when he'd only been gone for a few hours is realistic.

Even though I enjoyed Hannah Moskowitz's sparse style, I would have liked to see some aspects to be elaborated on, for example the relationship between the parents. I don't think the reader got to know enough about how difficult their relationship is before the divorce to understand their reasons - at times it seems like everything's fine, and at other's Chase tells us they're always fighting. One of the parents says that they'd been trying and failing to make it work for 18 years, and that's why they're getting a divorce now. What I'm asking myself is, why did they keep having kids if they thought their relationship wasn't going to work? I mean, if you're fighting all the time and know you're going to break up, why have seven kids? That's only one little thing, but it's something I just thought was kind of strange.

One storyline that didn't work for me at all is the love triangle. Chase and Noah know Melinda is sleeping with both of them (they talk about it with each other, and Melinda complains to both of them that the other one is better in bed), but for some reason, they don't mind. I just don't get how you can not care that your brother's sleeping with the same girl you're sleeping with, and that whole love triange just felt wrong to me. Melinda's 20 or 21, I think, when she sleeps with 15-year-old Chase for the first time, which seems wrong, too. Later on, once the reader finds out what happened to Melinda, I guess you could kind of understand why she would do that, but it still felt weird - I got Melinda's motivations, but I just can't wrap my head around the fact that Chase and Noah don't mind sharing Melinda.

Another aspect I didn't get are the Camus quotes. I guess you could say they're beautiful and deep and meaningful and whatnot, but for me, those parts were kind of boring. I just don't think it's realistic for teenagers to be quoting Camus all the time. Then again, I know Hannah Moskowitz wrote this book in her junior and senior year of high school, at which time she was obsessed with Camus, so I can't really say it's not realistic... but I can say those parts didn't interest me all that much and didn't have the impact they were supposed to have.

The last summer is, by far, my favorite part of this novel. Noah's grief is portrayed so well, and his feelings are raw and heart-breaking. I bawled while reading that part. I'm not sure whether I cried because of the actual book or because it reminded me of some other stuff I've been going through, but either way, it's always good if a book makes you feel something. It actually had me thinking I probably would have liked the book better if it had focused more on the last part and the grief aspect and less on some of the other storylines, like the divorce and the love triangle.

Invincible Summer was a conflicting read for me. The writing, the characters and the emotions portrayed are amazing, and I love the portrayal of family in this novel, as well as the tragedy towards the end. But some story lines are just kind of weird. Despite these problems, I decided to give this book a 4-star-rating becuase, even though some things didn't work for me personally, I know they're actually good and will hopefully work for others. One thing you should know though, is that Invincible Summer is nothing like the cover makes it out to be.