The War Blog is Glen Sobey's debut novel. A young adult story set in a rural Alaskan town, which, being from a rural Alaskan town, Glen Sobey has a unique insight into. And it is accompanied by an original soundtrack (lyrics are included throughout the story and songs can be found at www.thewarblog.com)

The book is about Crystal Rose, the teenage daughter of an alcoholic and a drug addict, who lives with her grandparents. She is ridiculed by boys at school for being a "Twig", and after finding out her mother was raped as a teenager and witnessing sexual assault and sexism around her, she decides to take action and with the help of her love interest sets up a blog and issues a call to arms for young girls to take up the fight against the patriarchy. 

Whilst I applaud Sobey's intentions with the book, a narrative like this is much needed in these times, an encouragement for girls to not stand for what the generations before them have, he unfortunately misses the mark a few too many times for my liking. One particular line sticks in my head, when Crystal is looking at her chest in the mirror: "too big and your assaulted, too small and your insulted." This feeds to the fact that rape and sexual assault is about sexual desire rather than power and violence. Women of all shapes and sizes are both assaulted and insulted. 

Like I said, I understand what Sobey is trying to acheive and I applaud it, and I definitely think it's still worth a read. These stories are definitely important. But being a white male, it is hard for Sobey to really give perspective on the issues women and people of colour face.

A 2.5 starrer probably...

I really wanted to enjoy this book because I think we need more feminist YA novels which take on the sexism and rape culture that is so prevalent in the current society. This book tries to give voice to that anger that girls are feeling more and more everyday, and appreciate the author for trying, but the execution is definitely not done well. The writing feels very choppy, there are a lot of issues with continuity between scenes, there are too many characters and their stories which are hard to keep track of and also difficult to empathize with, because we never do spend a lot of time going into depth about their feelings and trauma. 

I liked the songs that Crystal writes and I will definitely be listening to them because they capture the tone of the book well. I wish the remaining book could also have been equally good.

This book, set in Alaska, follows the story of Crystal Rose, a seventeen year old girl living with her grandparents and her younger brother. When a secret from the past is revealed it seems like she no longer knows who to trust, as her life has been built on a lie. Aside from all this she is dealing with high school life,  with all the teasing, bullying and misogyny that can sometimes entail. Determined to take back control of at least one aspect of her life, she sets up the WAR blog, a feminist platform dedicated to fight back against female objectification with the help of her long time friend and crush, Kato, who is struggling with a secret of his own. 
This book was quite a mixed bag for me. I really enjoyed the setting, and learning more about the customs of the indigenous Alaskan people. I also really liked Crystal as a character, her feistiness and determination to stand up for herself make her a really good role model for teen readers. However I really had an issue with how almost all the female characters were described, especially in a book that seems to decry objectification, Virtually every single female character had the size of her breasts described at one point or another, and it just seemed very odd, and out of keeping with the message it seems like the book was trying to convey. 
I read and reviewed an ARC courtesy of NetGalley and the publisher, all opinions are my own.