I am crazy happy to have a guest post from Jenn Bennett, author of Night Owls, on Syntax Reviews today. I read this book in a blur and loved everything about it - especially Jack. (He's super cute but swoony at the same time and if you want to know more about him, this post is for you.)
Top Five Reasons to
Swoon Over Jack Vincent of Night Owls
No matter what you’re
looking for in a hero, there’s practically a smorgasbord of hot boys in YA
literature. Want a tough footballer with a heart of gold or the shy guy who can
write all the poetry to melt your heart? What about the damaged rich kid with
the horrible abusive parents or that cute boy next door with one month to live?
You found him, you read him, you wept all the tears, and now you’re ready for
your next book boyfriend. Could Jack be the one? Let’s find out, shall we?
…………….
Reason #5: Jack Vincent is an anonymous seventeen-year-old
graffiti artist who’s been spray-painting enormous gold words across San
Francisco (BEGIN, FLY, BELONG, JUMP) under the Golden Apple tag, attracting
attention of local media—not to mention the police. No one can figure out what
the words mean, exactly, but he’s got the whole city buzzing. (Admit it: this
is kind of cool.) No one knows who is is…until my heroine, Bex, meets him on a
midnight bus and puts two and two together.
Reason #4: One word: pompadour. I mean, come on. Bex jokingly describes Jack as
the offspring of David Beckham and James Dean. He wears a vintage leather
jacket, has great boots, and is into Rockabilly music, which will always be
cool.
Reason #3: Think you’ve got him pegged
as a rebel and a bad boy? Think again. He’s a vegetarian and a self-described “really
bad Buddhist.” Jack’s dealing with something super depressing at home. I can’t
tell you what it is, because that would be a huge spoiler. But trust me, it’s
not fun or easy. A lot of people in his situation might have reacted
differently—lashed out, drowned their troubles in drugs or alcohol, given up
trying at school. Instead, Jack started going to meditation classes at the
local Zen Center. He’s not very good at being a Buddhist, which he fully
admits, and his teachers probably wouldn’t be down with his whole secret
graffiti agenda, but he tries.
Reason #2: The boy can kiss. If Jack and
Bex’s first kiss doesn’t melt you into a pool of goo on the floor, then you
aren’t alive. (Did I mention that this book is sex-positive? It is. Big time.)
Reason #1: He’s madly, passionately,
CRAZY in love with Bex. He knows it from the first time they meet on the bus.
He does stupid (illegal) things to prove himself to her and get her
attention. He doesn’t try to make her
jealous with other girls, and when something from his past comes up, he
immediately clears it up, because he does
not want to lose Bex. And best of all, he likes Bex for who she is—quirky,
kind of weird, kind of dark, and a girl who’s got her own agenda and goals. He
supports that. He’s cool with that. Heck, he even helps her. That’s swoon-worthy gold, right there, folks.
His name is Jack
Vincent, and he’s your next book boyfriend!
Night Owls | Jenn Bennett
Published in the US as The Anatomical Shape of A Heart
Published by: Simon & Schuster UK, August 13th 2015
Source: Simon & Schuster UK
Feeling alive is always worth the risk.
Meeting Jack on the Owl—San Francisco's night bus—turns Beatrix's world upside down. Jack is charming, wildly attractive...and possibly one of San Francisco's most notorious graffiti artists.
But Jack is hiding a piece of himself. On midnight rides and city rooftops, Beatrix begins to see who this enigmatic boy really is.
I wanted to read Night Owls pretty much as soon as I learned the main character was into anatomy and wanted to get into a Willed Body department to draw the cadavers. That's not the kind of heroine you find everyday. I hoped - rightly! - that her interest in anatomy would only be the start of this book's charm and quirks. I did not, however, expect Jack.
The love interest in this made me swoon and squee and make a tonne of ridiculously cheesy grins. He flips from being adorable, to being haunted, to being hot as hell without warning and it totally took me off guard. He charmed me, well and truly, and because of Jack I fell in love with Night Owls (I do think the US title fits the book better than ours but I'm nitpicking.) Reading this book just felt real, in a way I've wanted a bunch of contemporary books to before - but they never did, and this book achieved the impossible. I loved everything, the anatomy stuff, the family issues (what? I liked issues? Who has this book made me into?) because they weren't run of the mill, because they were interesting.
Other things I liked: Bex's gay brother (thank you for the diversity), Jack's mentally ill sister (also thank you for the inclusion), kids using public transport (because hella realistic), how every minor character had their own life (Bex's boss was my fave), and how the relationship grew at a natural pace, sparked merely by curiosity about Jack's nighttime activities (I wanted to know EVERYTHING about him too.)
This book was everything I hoped for and never expected to get. My favourite contemporary, for the swoony love interest, the awesome and complex and wholly interesting main character, and for the romance. Dear lord, the romance. Read this immediately.
Setting/world building ★★★☆☆
