HELLO FRIENDS! I HAVE A TREAT FOR YOU TODAY, I HAVE BEEN WAITING TO BRING YOU THIS ONE! THE STORM BEFORE THE CALM BY CATE ASHWOOD IS A-MAZING!!! I HAVE MY REVIEW, DREAMSPINNER AND GOODREADS LINKS, AND AN EXCERPT, SO LET'S GET STARTED:
THIS IS PERFECT ADVICE FOR SWEET CHARLIE! HERE IS MY REVIEW:
The Storm Before The Calm by: Cate Ashwood
reviewed by: Becky
Charlie has one
passion in life: dancing. It’s his salvation when it feels like the
world is swallowing him whole. When his mom secretly secures him a
spot in the summer intensive at the Free Rein Dance Company in New
York, he is thrilled. He knows that once the summer ends, he'll have
to return to Beacon to get a job and help support his family, but for
those two months, he can spread his wings.
In New York he meets
Max, a junior instructor who is everything Charlie wishes he could
be. Bold and self-assured, Max radiates pride in who he is. As they
spend time together, Max shows Charlie what life can be like past the
walls of his closed-minded home town. But Charlie doesn’t know if
he’s ready to show the world who he truly is when standing in the
spotlight is the last thing he wants.
This is one of those reviews where I am gonna have to restrain myself from just typing "YOU MUST READ THIS BOOK" over and over, because yes friends, it is that good! I love Cate Ashwood's writing style, she draws you in at the first line and doesn't let you go until the end. This is the mark of a great writer let me tell you!
Charlie is miserable in his hometown and school is a nightmare, which he has kept from his mother, who has raised him herself. Charlie deals with it the only way he knows how, that and he loves to dance. Dancing is a release of all that is bad in his life, and he is good at it!
When his mom gets him into the summer program at Free Rein Dance Company in New York, Charlie is over the moon, this is his chance to escape the hell of his hometown at least for a little while.
Charlie moves in with Aunt Ginny and gets started at Free Rein, but he doesn't count on Max, the beautiful Jr. Instructor has him falling hard and fast, but Charlie has never said the words "I'm Gay", so can he act on them? What about when the summer is over?
This is the story of a young man who grows up and realizes who he is over the course of a summer, it is a beautiful story and I encourage you to read it, you will fall in love with Max and Charlie just like I did! Thank you Cate, for a book with as beautiful an ending as a beginning!
the 5 Cyclone poster rating :)
I DID THIS RATING IN HONOR OF A PERFECT DAY OUT! HERE ARE THE BUY LINK AND GOODREADS LINK:
NOW FOR AN EXCERPT:
“Welcome to Coney Island,” Max said as the boardwalk came
into view. We walked past Nathan’s Famous Hot Dogs and the Ferris
wheel in the distance before we stepped out onto the wooden-planked
walkway that ran along the shore. Lots of people milled about, and
Max took my hand, pulling me along.
There was so much to look at, so
many shops and restaurants and little ice cream stands.
“The two best things to do here are Luna Park and the aquarium.
What do you wanna do?”
“What’s Luna Park?” I asked.
“Oh, that’s the amusement park behind us,” Max clarified.
“Definitely that. I’ve never been to an amusement park.”
“Not even when you were a little kid?”
“Nope. There’s nothing close to Beacon, and even if there had
been, it would have been tough for me to get there.”
“So you’ve never been on a roller coaster? Or a Ferris wheel? Or….”
“None of it.”
“Well, we’re going to remedy this right away. This is your
summer of firsts, Sparky. Let’s pop that coaster cherry.”
I chuckled and tried to keep up as Max all but ran for the entrance
to the park.
MINUTES LATER we were standing in line for the Cyclone, the coaster
that I was told was a Coney Island classic. It looked pretty terrifying to
me. A wooden monster, it hulked above us. The kid standing in front of
us was crying and begging his dad not to make him go. His dad looked
down, laughed, and called the kid a pussy. I wasn’t sure how solid the
parent’s judgment was, but I was beginning to think maybe we should have eased into this, started with something smaller, like, oh, I don’t
know… the Tea Party or the Mermaid Parade.
I told Max as much, citing my preferred starter rides, to which he
winked at me and replied, “Pussy.”
Before long we were the next in line, standing, waiting to load
into the red death cars. Max stepped in first, scooching over so I could
sit next to him before he pulled the lap bar down. I held on to the
handle in front of me, my adrenaline spiking as the car lurched forward.
We wound around the corner, and suddenly we were climbing.
The track wasn’t very smooth, and as the pulls clicked and clacked
away, I inspected the wood beams that held us in the air. They looked
old—very old. In fact, the whole thing looked like it might have been
constructed by a bunch of drunk guys back in 1802.
“This is safe, right?” I asked Max as we were pulled under the
giant sign that said remain seated. Who in their right mind would stand
up?
As we crested over the apex, I could see for miles—the whole park,
the whole boardwalk, the whole ocean—it felt like.
And then we were falling, pitched forward as we raced down,
metal on wood, my whole body shaking with the force of it. My
stomach was in my throat, and I was struggling to breathe. I heard Max
next to me, whooping peals of laughter intermixed with his yells. He
was having a blast. Up and down, we traveled faster than I’d ever gone
in my life, nothing holding me down but a metal bar and my solid grip
on the handle in front of me.
Finally the ride was over and the cars bumped and slid their way
back to the beginning. The attendants ushered us from the seats and
down the walkway out of the ride.
“Well?” Max asked expectantly.
“Can we go again?” I asked.
NOW YOU UNDERSTAND THE CYCLONE RATING ;)! GRAB THIS BOOK FRIENDS, YOU WILL BE VERY GLAD YOU DID!
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