Remembrance audiobook

"You can take the boy out of the darkness. But you can’t take the darkness out of the boy." This really hard for me to say, so I'm going to say it fast: Remembranceisn'tasgoodasIexpected.Don't get me wrong. It's good. It's really good. We see Suze and the gang again, there are panty-melting moments the one Jesse del Silva, and a meaty mystery that keeps you reading. But—(Come on, you knew there'd be a but)—it's lacking. My expectations were sky high and it fell short of the stars. The main problem is Paul. Just a quick recap: he's a mediator who was hot for Suze's pants and tried to sabotage her and Jesse's relationship by preventing him from being murdered in the first place. It backfired and Jesse's body was pulled to the present, then reunited with his soul. During prom, Paul bowed gracefully from the arena and out of Suze's life. That's the vibe I got. Here, six years later, we find out he's still in love with Suze and threatens to knock down her old house (where Jesse died), which might unleash the Underworld demon in him. Suze believes him and our plot begins.It's a supremely flimsy reason. Jesse has never shown disposition for crude violence in the past. It's mostly Suze who punches first, asks questions later. But we're supposed to buy into this ploy just because Suze mentions she sees "shadows lurking in the depths of his eyes" or something. As many reviewers have pointed out, (view spoiler)[that plot line was never resolved. The ending is also eerily similar to Royal Wedding, Cabot's adult installment of The Princess Diaries. They get married, new pairings are born and they sneak out after the reception to do some canoodling. (hide spoiler)]Everything else is brilliant. We don't see Jesse until 10% in, which I swear is a plot on Cabot's part to make us squirm. "She was never yours to give, Slater," Jesse hissed, his face only inches from Paul. "Nor is she mine. Women aren't horses, they don't belong to one man or another, though maybe you think they do, since you've evidently been working so hard to steal her away." Something I've noticed in YA is they don't like mentioning the word 'feminist'. Even though they have kickass female characters and solid female friendships, the girls never identify themselves as one. Why am I making such a big deal out of it? Because it's seen as a dirty word. 'Feminist' is too permanent a label, too 'man-hating'. So it's a breath of fresh air when I see grand statements like these: "It's antifeminist to judge another woman for her choices, no matter how crappy they are." You go, CeeCee.There are swear words in it, for those who like to know that sort of thing. Oddly enough, Cabot never swears in her YA books, even though she talks about stuff like periods, masturbation, and sex. Who can forget Mia Thermopolis complaining about PMS? On the flip side, modern YA isn't shy about dropping four-letter bombs, but are oddly prudish about menstruation and safe sex. If I were to choose a YA book for my teenager, I'd go for Cabot. Way more educational. "We all have to work for free just to get some experience so we can put it on our resumes so we can maybe get a paying job someday, but there's no guarantee we will. Oh, right. I forgot they don't mention this in high school. You're still brimming with hope and joie de vivre." Don't let what I said in the beginning turn you off. Remembrance is an amazing addition to a magnificent series and I recommend it to anyone who enjoys a side of smart, butt-kicking heroines with their paranormal romance.ARC provided by Edelweiss["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>

So great to be back with Suze & Jesse! I really hope she is releasing another in the series!CRAZY EXCITED FOR THIS!!!! So awesome that there is an adult follow up to the YA series! More authors should do this!

Re-read 5/31/17: Still so sad this is over :( although I will say upon re-reading this, I am a bit more aware of some problematic elements that went on during this book, so I'm knocking off a star. Will probably go into that further in my May Wrap-Up in a few days. Original read: Thus concludes one of my favorite series of all time. I loved this SO MUCH and I am so sad that it's over :( I JUST WANT MORE

**Catch the original review - gifs and all! - over on my blog**This is not a drill, everyone. Nor is it an extremely early and well-organised April Fool's joke on the entire Meg Cabot fanbase.This. Is. Real.Yes, this seventh book in the highly-acclaimed, swoonworthy and badass The Mediator series is a real dream come true! The 400 page book is TBR February 2nd 2016 which means that you won't have to wait long for more Suze & Jesse awesomeness.I was lucky enough to acquire an ARC of the book via Edelweiss and William Morrow Paperbacks which led to a lengthy fangirling session where I danced around the house like a madwoman possessed by the ghost of a madwoman. Now for my review...Book cover: Let me see...does it feature a badass Suze? Check. A hottie in a tux? Check. Meg Cabot's name on the cover? Check. Is Suze wearing boots that I would die for? Check, check, check! Not only am I totally envious of the perfection that is her hair (I mean how does she get it to not frizz, girl, teach me your secrets!!) but those sunglasses? The bling? The boots? Overall Suze is as badass as ever!This may be my inner fangirl talking but I have been waiting to see Jesse de Silva in a tux since forever. Am I little disappointed we don't see his swoonworthy face? Yes I am. But I think I can forgive the cover simply because that tux is incredibly hot and having Jesse's face on the cover would have totally outshone Suze ;)Plot: Meg Cabot always surprises me with her complex and intriguing plots. Remembrance is not an exception. The fact that it is the seventh book in the series will make some bookworms a little uneasy. I mean, there is an entire mind-blowing series to live up to! No one wants the final book - especially one we've all been anticipating for so long - to be an afterthought filled with fanfiction-esque ramblings.Remembrance is far from that. It may, in fact, just be one of my favourite books in the series. Purely because we get to see Jesse and Suze at their most vulnerable and their most human. Meg Cabot brings out her signature humour and wit, as well as some great plot twists and developments. I was really surprised with how detailed the plot was and how Meg Cabot was able to come up with fresh ideas, problems, and resolutions. This book is a new journey with old friends and it really feels like coming home.Reading Remembrance was actually a little emotional! It really makes you connect with the book's title 'Remembrance' - a trip down memory lane, reconnecting with past characters and storylines. All the other books come rushing back to you. I was just so excited every time I read a familiar name, or caught a reference to something that had happened in the previous books. And yes I totally fangirled over Jesse. I mean, come on, the guy is like a bottle of wine he just gets better with age!Favourite quote: I tried to pick just one but I am too weak and in love with this book so I am making it two!#1: "I'm sorry. I'm actually very busy and important and don't have time for rich jerks from my past who want to make amends. But I wish you luck on your path toward transformative enlightenment. Bye now." ~ Remembrance, Chapter 1#2: "Of course I'm not crying. I never cry. It's allergies. They're terrible this time of year." Jesse gave me one of his lopsided grins."It would be all right if you cried," he said. "I like it when you do. It gives me an excuse to play that overprotective nineteenth-century macho man you're always talking about." ~ Remembrance, Chapter 14Final notes: Just a quick note about Remembrance. Even though it is the seventh instalment in the series it is the only adult one. All the other books in the series come under YA. There will be mature themes and situations discussed in the book. It is in no ways overdone, nor does it change the basic nature of the book or the series. However in Remembrance the characters we know and love are adults and so there is a shift in genre somewhat :)

How. Did. I. Not. Know. About. This. ???Nothing will be able to keep me away !Over & Out, T xx

It was fun to read a completely new Mediator novel. The characters were older yet retained their personalities, which was good. The haunting in this book was more complex, which I enjoyed. It was a little less formulaic this time around. The only thing that annoys me is how much Suze hides things - she's a terrible communicator. But that's more of a character flaw than a book flaw. Overall, I really liked this one. The beauty of this series is that I am able to keep my expectations low and have a good time. The writing is decent and the characters are fun. I'm usually not able to suspend judgment while reading, but this series will always have a place in my heart. I was sad it was over when I finished.

Opinião em português: http://pepitamagica.blogspot.pt/2016/...Full review: http://pepitamagica.blogspot.pt/2016/...You know those books that, not being extraordinary, become some of our favourites? The Mediator series is, for me, a series of those books. And a long time ago I had resigned myself to the six books that the author had written, always with the conviction (for she assured) that there would no longer be any more books of this series. Now imagine my surprise when, after 12 years (I did my waiting! 12 years of it! – forgive me, I couldn’t resist), I find that Meg Cabot decided to write a seventh book. I didn’t hesitate and from the moment I had it in my hands, I started reading it. (...)This next part may not be the most suitable thing to write in a review, but I know you’ll forgive me for my enthusiasm (it’s not every day that you get a new book from one of your favourite series). You know those mad crushes you have on a character? Well, I think a lot of this series’ readers had a crush on Jesse. With his Hispanic look, his thick black hair, his eyebrow with a scar that he lifted every time Suze said/done something that he thought it was strange, the way he said her name (always Susannah), and how he called her “querida”, with his lovely accent…oh my. (...)In this seventh book, we find Suze and Jesse as adults, or at least as young adults. Suze is working in her old school, while studying to become a school counsellor – after dealing with so many problematic ghosts, she thought that it would be a good idea to put her mediator skills working for the living. Jesse…well…if you haven’t read the sixth book everything I might next could be a huge spoiler, so, for now, I’ll just say that everything is fine with Jesse and that he and Suze are together.The problems start when Paul Slater, Suze and Jesse’s common enemy, shows up. He sends Suze an email saying that he bought her old house (the one where she and Jesse had met – a XIX century house with a framed bullet hole). And this is important because Paul warns Suze (is it really a warning?) that if the house where Jesse died is demolished, the shadows that are currently inside Jesse, will get out and…well, bad things would happen and it would destroy the couple’s happiness.(...)I really liked seeing Suze’s half-brothers again, but I was kind of sad to see that she no longer thought of them as Sleepy, Doc and Dopey. Doc, I mean David, was and always will be my favourite: the red head boy, the friend, the younger brother, the most clever and smart of the Ackarman boys, he was the only one who knew something about who Suze really was and what she did. (...)I was sad to see that Father Dominic, another mediator and the dean of the school were Suze worked, showed up very few times in the book. I always liked him and the way he almost clashed amicably with Suze’s approach to the ghostly problem that appeared in their lives. My greatest sorrow reading this book was, probably, seeing what Jesse had become. The friendly ghost who was an advocate for everyone (humans and ghosts), is now cold and distant. I get that him being born in the XIX century made his behavior different, particularly regarding women, but considering that as a ghost he always tried to see the best in people, and act accordingly, I definitely did not like seeing him always thinking the worst about everyone and how ghosts are evil and how they ALL want to hurt his precious Suze, not wanting to give them a single chance – why Meg, why? (...)I know I’m not talking a lot about the book, but the worst thing I could do would be to tell you the story and ruin it (actually, I think it would ruin the whole series). So, I’ll end this review very quickly. It was definitely a book that brought up good memories, a book whose writing I recognized and cherished, with characters that are very dear to me and problems that mirrored the previous books but in a more adult way. The story, as always, was very easy to read, with a fast pace. In short, it was a book that I quite enjoyed (and that I hadn’t REALLY thought that would ever be published), and maybe because I really, really like this series, the final score is a bit higher than maybe it should be.

Re-Read 12/30/20: I can't even tell you how excited I was when this came out! The Mediator series is my absolute favorite series from pre-teenhood. Whenever I was home sick from school, I would challenge myself to re-read all 6 books. I think I've read them each about 10 times at this point.I see this book get a lot of criticism, but I think it is perfectly in the spirit (pun intended) of the original 6. Suze and Jesse have character flaws that grew up with them. The plots are always a little far-fetched, and these hijinks scaled up with age, too. It was refreshing to see these beloved characters in a new light and the story held the same magic as the originals for me.

"That dress has been hanging in my closet for so long I think it’s got more cobwebs than my vagina.”MEG, YOU MAGNIFICENT CREATURE.I don't know how you managed to get in the same mindset you were when you wrote the previous books, but this was a seamless transition. Not one line of this felt out of place. Everything gave off the original Mediator feel. But it actually managed to be more spicy, more heartbreaking, more adult.I didn't know how much I needed more Suze and Jesse until I read this. I was always content with how things had ended, I hadn't realized how much fun there was still to be had with these characters. “Right,” I muttered. “Doctors. Everyone’s got a disorder.” “Counselors,” he shot back. “Everyone needs therapy.”First of, despite the cover, this book was not about Suze and Jesse's wedding. Or about Paul showing up and messing things up, as the first chapters would suggest. I guess I was expecting it to be focused on relationship drama, but we got ourselves a case, like in any other Mediator book, that took up most of the book and tied everything else together.But this was different than anything else Suze had ever worked on. It brought on the feels big time. I have never been so invested in a ghost's story (other than Jesse's, obviously) and a case has never had that much impact on Suze and her relationships with pretty much everyone.There is the general theme of Jesse having a dark side and it comes our more often than not whenever our ghost is involved. His traumatic experience of being alone and invisible to everyone for so long has left its marks and he is terrified of losing Suze, which make him a bit too determined to protect her at any cost. As Suze tells him, he pulls his "overprotective nineteenth-century macho man bullshit" way too often. But, we had some classic Jesse scenes to remind us of the good old times! For one, he is still struggling with the 21st century lingo. “Is that a gun?” “Of course it’s not a gun, Susannah. It’s a cordless lamp.”[...]"What’s a cordless lamp? Oh, you mean a flashlight."And then I had to google translate his dirty-texting, where he asked Suze if she wanted to play doctor. In Spanish. Yes, that actually happened. We have come a long way from translating "querida"...As far as Suze is concerned, she is the mouthy ass kicker we have come to love, but even though she is often over her head, she has grown up and even in her "shoot first ask questions later" moments is more calculative than she was before and gets the job done effectively. The one thing that gets me every time though, is the humor with which she faces everything. One second I'm angsting over what's happening, and in the next second her inner voice has me literally cracking up.If there was a demon living inside him, it was going to take one hell of a blessing to drive it out. I was probably going to have to come up with an imam, a rabbi, and a Wiccan high priestess in addition to Father Dom to get rid of this curse.I dangled there by my neck, still struggling to unloose her fingers, gasping for air, wondering in the distant part of my brain that could still register thought what I would look like to any of my fellow tenants who might happen to glance down at the pool from their balconies. They wouldn’t be able to see the NCDP that was holding me by the neck above the water level. Would they think I was performing some kind of odd water ballet? Suze Simon, amateur mermaid. Perhaps they’d applaud, and compliment me later . . . if I lived until later.But despite all of the things that eventually go her way, poor Suze is continuously frustrated at Jesse's insistence to be overly gentlemanly...“My dream come true. I finally get to sleep in your bed, and you won’t even be there.”“When a man and a woman like each other very much, they start kissing, and then they get a funny feeling in their tummies. And in a normal relationship the man goes with the woman to her apartment, and they get naked and relieve each other of the funny feeling. Unless the man insists on waiting until we’re married, and then the woman has a nervous breakdown—”I was wondering what to text back—I can’t believe you’d steal holy bread and wine from a church, but you won’t have sex with me didn’t seem right somehow—And yet Jesse was not shy in his bantering over the matter, or in the occasional passionate moment, that he actually instigated a lot of the time. And let's just say I ENJOYED THE ADULT ANGLE A LOT.His hands slipped beneath the towel to singe my bare flesh. I sucked in my breath. “Is that something you do to all your patients you treat for shock?” “No.” He pulled me closer to him. “Only you. You get special treatment.” His lips came down over mine.“Uh-oh. You really are soaked, aren’t you? You can’t go back to your shift in wet clothes. You’ll catch a cold. You should probably take your shirt off and come upstairs with me and let me dry it for you.” “You don’t have a drying machine in your apartment. Are you trying to get me naked, Miss Simon?”"Sometimes I think you’re the one who needs to have the demons exorcised out of her.” “You’re probably right,” I said, enjoying the close-up view I was getting down the vee of his shirt, and the rock-hard feel of those solidly carved chest and shoulder muscles. “Maybe we should head to your car. Since you’ve already got all the necessary equipment, you could start driving the devil out of me right now.”What would happen, I wondered, if I knelt beside the couch, kissed Jesse awake, then slipped my hand beneath that waistband? Now who was the one with a dark side? Me. It was me! And there wasn’t enough rock salt in all the Home Depots in the world to contain it.But with Jesse trying to shelter her and Suze's I-can-take-care-of-myself attitude, there was a lot of conflict between them that went into serious territory, like fighting over moral issues and Jesse's inclination towards committing murder... (I'm telling you, we have some heavy shit to deal with here!)“Oh, okay, Sheriff de Silva. I’ll just go decorate some bonnets while you execute a few criminals without due process.”And then there's Paul. El Diablo was the nickname I’d assigned to Paul in my phone. It seemed appropriate, given that I was pretty sure he was Satan.He was kinda there. Like the elephant in the room. And when he showed up a lot went down, but while he was involved in more than one side-plots, he didn't have as much face-time as I would have expected. To be honest I don't know what to think of him. I always loved to hate him and he made a good antagonist, but with the behavior he displayed after all these years I feel like he was the only person who didn't grow up one bit, not even as a villain. He had an important role to play, but I am kinda over him. As far as other characters go, I think I pretty much enjoyed all of them! It was fun seeing where they ended up and Suze had all these delightful interactions with everyone!The first was from Sister Ernestine, wanting to know how—how on earth!—I could have left the office looking the way I had, and just what I proposed we do about the triplets, my stepnieces. The next one was from the triplets’ mother, my stepbrother Brad’s wife, Debbie, demanding to know who Sister Ernestine thought she was, suggesting that her daughters might have ADHD, when in fact they were only naturally high-spirited and creative little girls. This was followed by a voice mail from Brad, asking if I could please get “that old windbag Sister Ernestine” off his back, as she was ruining his marriage.“But, David, there’s nothing you can do. I have it all under control.” “Oh, do you? Then why did you spend last night at Brad and Debbie’s? You can’t stand Debbie. Last time we had dinner together, you called her a self-centered harpy and said you hope she gets nail fungus under her gel manicure.”“I’m not even getting paid for this.” “What? How come?” “Because there are, like, nine hundred applicants with way more experience than people my age for every job that comes available. We all have to work for free just to get some experience so we can put it on our résumés so we can maybe get a paying job someday, but there’s no guarantee we will. Oh, right. I forgot they don’t mention this in high school. You’re still brimming with hope and joie de vivre.”I did have some issues with how things were resolved in the end, that I can't go into detail about, because, spoilers! But this was still an amazing read and everything I hoped it would be! And since this review is filled with sassy-Suze-quotes, I'll just close with one of my favorites.Then I’d sprinkled a mixture of sea salt and boric acid across all the outside doorways and windowsills, as well as the seams in the kitchen counters. The salt was to keep out Non-Compliant Deceased Persons. The boric acid was to keep away roaches. I figured why not kill two unwanted pests in one?

I discovered Meg Cabot when I came across the delightfully pink PRINCESS DIARIES whilst working at Borders back in ye olde dayes. I love that series, and I've loved pretty much all of Meg's books. She has a fun, flirty, chatty style, even when her characters are talking about exorcising vengeful ghosts. My sister found the MEDIATOR books right after I recommended PRINCESS DIARIES to her, and then passed them on to me. I read them all in quick succession (the last one had just come out), and while I didn't love them the way I loved Princess Mia, they were different and fun.This one is a fun follow up, almost akin to a "reunion special" for a sitcom. Six years later, where are Suze and Jesse now? Well, if you care, read the book to find out! It took me a bit to get back into it (I didn't remember most of the character names), but once I got up to speed I thoroughly enjoyed it. A nice cap off to the series.