Shift, Poison Apples, and a most excellent My Excellent Year

Quick thoughts on a few books I've read recently:

Shift by Jennifer Bradbury
Two good friends (or are they?) take off on a cross country bike trip the summer before they head off to college. Neither of them has ever done anything even remotely like this before. Do they have the stamina for it? Do they have the maturity for it? Win's father doubts he has the guts for it. Chris and Win are determined to prove all their doubters wrong. But along the way, Chris begins to have his own doubts. Something is going on with Win, but he isn't talking to Chris about it. Chris is getting a bit fed up about it all. But he had nothing - nothing - to do with Win's disappearance. Too bad the FBI and Win's very, very powerful father don't believe that.

This one was intriguing. The use of flashbacks intercut with Chris's interviews with the FBI agent was very effective, making me impatient and curious to find out what had happened on the trip. I wouldn't call this a mystery. It's more a novel of self-discovery. Ultimately, I didn't buy the whole thing, but I wasn't left dissatisfied, either. Best read by people who don't need non-stop action or heart-stopping suspense but do like reading about interpersonal relationships.

The Poison Apples by Lily Archer
Three girls. Three rotten stepmothers. One boarding school. Not-so-instant bond. And then...revenge!

I liked this well enough, but I thought there were things that didn't hang together well. For instance, we're given to understand that Reena is a compulsive liar. Why introduce that personality trait if it doesn't play a significant role in the book? The subplot about Molly's mother is forgotten for large portions of the story. When it finally comes to the forefront, my first thought was, "Finally!" My second thought was, "Wait...she just found out (:x - not going to give it away here) and she does nothing about it?" The ultimate resolution of that story point seemed to come out of left field and felt tacked on, as though it wasn't very important to either Molly or the reader, even though it most certainly is. I also kept wondering if I'd missed or forgotten something when the romance elements crept in. I don't remember Alice meeting Jamal, but suddenly she had a huge crush on him. Say what? I also thought that the girls' voices weren't distinct enough. I could tell who was talking (each girl gets to narrate parts of the story), but only by what they said, not how they said it. Despite these quibbles, it was still an enjoyable read. I recommend it to teens looking for something quick and light. But readers looking for something with depth and complexity will probably want to look elsewhere.

My Most Excellent Year by Steve Kluger
This book is also told in three (well, mainly three) voices, and unlike the previous book, the voices are distinct. You can't possibly confuse T.C. with Augie or Augie with Alé. The book purports to be written as an English assignment as they look back on the diaries they kept during their "most excellent" freshman year. It's the year that T.C. falls in love and is forced to realize that being charming only gets a guy so far. It's the year that Augie realizes he's gay (it's no surprise to anyone else) and falls in love for the first time. It's the year Alé discovers that her talents lie in the performing arts, not the diplomatic corps, and that she's not as immune to charming as she'd like to think. It is also the year they meet six-year-old Hucky and get a whole new appreciation for Mary Poppins and American Sign Language.

Quick thumbs up/thumbs down:

• Thumbs down: Of course Augie loves musicals and is a wonderful perfomer. He's gay, isn't he? (I'm a little tired of this stereotype.)
• Thumbs up: Augie is also good at sports. Lots of them! And so is his boyfriend (who is not quite the performer that Augie is).
• Thumbs up: Yeah, they're gay. So what? (This brings to mind David Levithan's Boy Meets Boy. Not realistic, but very refreshing to read about a gay guy whose only angst is due to not being able to figure out if his crush likes him or not.)
• Thumbs up: The notes, faxes, emails, and chat room conversations which break up the diary entries. I especially liked the ones between T.C.'s father and adviser as they play the "we're not really falling in love" game. (Adults actually get quite a lot of page time in this book.)
  
• Thumbs downish: Some of the parental notes get a wee bit cutesy, and Augie's mother's notes seem a bit tacked on.
• Thumbs up: Parent-child relationships are strong and positive.
  
• Julie Andrews comes through! (Hey, what can I say? Hucky's not the only one who loves Mary Poppins!)
  

Though this is a light, fun read, at its heart, it is about the power of love. Though romantic love seems to get the most attention, there's also the love between two best friends and their families who decided long ago that biology counts for nothing when it comes to what brotherhood is really all about. There's the love between parents and their children, both when it's there in abundance and when there's no parent to provide it. It's also about the love that causes people to go the extra mile for someone. It's a hug of a book.

So, What's Your Secret?

The Black Book of Secrets by F. E. Higgins
4Q/4P M

My library has this in its children's collection (which technically is for Pre-K to grade 6), but I think it's more a middle school (grades 5-8) book. I finished the book while in bed. Just before I fell asleep, I wrote a one-paragraph summary I really liked. But it was all in my head, and naturally, I can't remember a word of it now! But as I said in a previous post, because I read this while on leave, I'm confining my review to just a short summary and a reaction paragraph.

When Ludlow realizes that his drunkard parents intend to have his (perfectly good) teeth pulled out so they can earn a few pence for more drink, it's the last straw. He's determined to get out of their clutches for once and for all. He escapes his squalid life by catching on to the back of a coach leaving the city. The coach belongs to a despicable man named Jeremiah Ratchet, and its destination is the small village of Pagus Parvus. Ratchet has made the lives of the villagers miserable by sucking them dry of nearly every penny they earn. After stealing Ratchet's scarf and mittens, Joe meanders up the hill, where he discovers that he is not the only newcomer. Joe Zabbidou has also just arrived in town. He intends to open a pawn shop in a building on the outskirts of the village. Joe welcomes Ludlow in. In fact, Joe is a very welcoming sort. He takes all sorts of things in trade, even the most worthless (a chipped chamber pot, anyone?). But every now and then, Joe will look at a customer and ask if he'd like to stop by for a visit later in the day...say about midnight? And when they come (as they always do), Joe greets them with a drink and a question: Do they have a secret they'd like to share? They do, always. And they are dark secrets, involving murders, grave robbing, thievery, and the like. It is Ludlow's job to record these secrets in Joe's black book of secrets. It becomes clear that the villagers hope that Joe, who has helped them in so many other ways, will also help them deal with Ratchet, but Joe steadfastly refuses to do so. Ludlow can only watch and wonder what Joe's intentions are. What does he do with the secrets he records? He pays handsomely for those secrets, but where does the money come from? And if he doesn't intend to help the villagers, why is he there?

This is an entertaining read, and I think it will get good word of mouth. But the imagery is vivid, and kids who are squeamish or prone to overactive imaginations may find it disturbing in spots. On the flip side, kids who like dark, creepy books will love the more sinister, grosser aspects of it. Higgins balances the dark with a tendency to go slightly over the top at times, especially with Ratchet, so just when things might be getting a little too horrific, there's a passage that can't be taken too seriously to lighten things up again. Ludlow is an appealing character, and Joe is an intriguing blend of mystery and simple(?) goodness. Higgins's ability to build tension worked for me as a reader, but also as a key plot element as the villagers get restless waiting for Joe's hatchet (so to speak) to fall on Ratchet. The ending is a bit of a stretch, but with the exception of one element of it, not surprising. After all, with books like this, it's pretty much a given that there's a book two in the works. Will I read the next one? It's not going to be on the top of my list, but I wouldn't be surprised if I checked it out at some point.

Shakespeare for the 21st Century

Spanking Shakespeare by Jake Wizner
4Q 3P S

As I said about The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, this is a book that may raise a parental eyebrow or two on occasion, but teenage boys won't bat an eye and will eat these books up. It's great to have books for older teenage boys that will make them laugh. Out loud, even. We don't get very many of those.

Shakespeare Shapiro is a loser even in his own eyes. Here he is, a senior in high school, and he's yet to kiss a girl. His younger brother Gandhi gets more action than he does! He has his eye on Celeste Keller, who's been his fantasy girl since ninth grade, even though he knows he should be realistic and settle for one of his safety list girls (you know, like you have a list of safety schools when you're applying for college, these are girls he's pretty sure wouldn't say no). For the time being, though, he's holding on to his dreams (in more ways than one) and hoping someone on his "unrealistic" list will come through for him. Shakespeare has only two good friends, Katie and Neil. The typical conversation between the three of them consists of Katie telling Shakespeare everything that's wrong with him, Neil describing his bowel movements, and Shakespeare trying to get his head around the fact that Neil and Katie are hooking up.

At home, besides his handsomer, more popular younger brother, he's got a neurotic mother and an alcoholic father. They're a tad on the sadistic side (in case you couldn't guess from the names they gave their kids). Dad's favorite parenting methods involved terrorizing his kids. When Mom got fed up with them, she pretended they didn't exist. When Shakespeare was seven, they sent him to a summer camp that he would later compare to Lord of the Flies. (It wasn't a totally savage experience. He did learn one important skill there that gave him a great deal of pleasure throughout his teenage years.) Of course, there are benefits to having crazy parents. They're pretty easy to negotiate with, for one thing. For giving up naming rights to his puppy (they named it Onomatopoeia, Pee for short), Shakespeare got $30 bucks and a picture of a naked woman for his bedroom. So yeah, maybe there are a few advantages to having parents who are nuts.

Does a kid like this have any chance of getting the girl? Of getting any girl? It isn't looking good. And Shakespeare is more than a little tired of getting action only in his dreams. But he has one talent that just might get him the girl after all. Shakespeare can write. (Ironic, isn't it?) And Shakespeare has a weird sense of humor. As it turns out, there are two girls who like that combination in a man. Two! An embarrassment of riches! And one of them is Celeste! But remember who we're talking about here. The course of true love never did run smooth.

Of course, it's just barely possible that we should be taking much of this with a grain of salt. Perhaps several grains. Half of this book, after all, is really Shakespeare's memoir, the memoir that all seniors in his school have to write. Could Shakespeare be exaggerating just a tad, just to make his memoirs memorable? For his sake, I hope so!


Musings:

I've read that the author is a middle school teacher and that this book (his first) is making the rounds in his school to great acclaim. That's cool. But I'll be recommending it to high school-aged teens, not middle schoolers.

There's a lot to laugh about in this book. But I think that there are elements that are a little forced. For instance, how many teenage boys are obsessed with their bowel movements, to the point of keeping a journal about them? Isn't that pushing scatological humor a little over the top? That could be my bias as someone who was never a teen-aged boy. Readers who love outrageous humor aren't going to bat an eye at elements like that. Those who like something a little subtler may need to let a few things slide.

For all that I've been emphasizing the humor in this book, there's more to it than that. The subplot involving Charlotte White adds much-needed depth to Shakespeare's character and heart to the book. Shakespeare is more than a little self-obsessed, and I felt he needed someone like Charlotte to make him a mensch. When the book ended, I found myself wanting to know more about that relationship and how it changed Shakespeare. I'd read that sequel, were it to be written.

I was tickled by the decision to make the book look like a binder, complete with dog-eared pages.

Quotes: (selected to give you a sense of Shakespeare's voice):

I should warn you. Some of the material you're about to read is disturbing. Some of it will make you shake your head in disbelief. Some of it will make you cringe in disgust. Some of it might even make you rush out into the stormy night, rip your shirt from your body, and howl, "WHY, GOD, WHY?" Then again, maybe you'll jusst sit back and smile, secure in the knowledge that your name is not Shakespeare Shapiro, and this is not your life.

Ten minutes later Ms. Rigby, my math teacher, calls on me when I'm not paying attention. Ms. Rigby is the kind of teacher who prowls for students not paying attention and pounces on them with undisguised delight. I've been staring at Jody Simons, who is wearing a miniskirt and sitting diagonally in front of me, and when Ms. Rigby calls my name, my head shoots up and my cheeks begin to burn. "Shakespeare," she says. "If you would devote as much focus to calculus as you do to Jody's legs, you might learn some math this year." Everybody laughs, and Jody shoots me a sympathetic look, the kind you might offer to the parent of a brain-dead child.

I wonder how Ganghi [asked a girl out]...I wanted to ask. What did you say? What did she say back? Of course when you're sixteen and your brother is fourteen, you can't really ask him to teach you how to get a girlfriend. Sometimes I wish we were still in elementary school so I could beat him up like I used to.

One of Shakespeare's tamer musings on girls:

The day Celeste heard my obituary was the day our relationship took on new life. We sit together in class now, and I smile when she makes references to novels I haven't read and wonder if this is how literary people flirt. I missed a great opportunity the other day. She was talking about a battle scene in The Iliad as an example of Homer-erotica, and it wasn't until later that I realized that "Homer" rhymes with "boner".

Shakespeare's mother is a big believer in therapy. She thinks Shakespeare would benefit from it, but he keeps saying no. I like this quote because Shakespeare presents himself as a fairly shallow guy, and I think this goes a way towards explaining why.

The truth is I know exactly why I'm resistant. I don't want a therapist to tell me things about myself I don't want to hear, and I don't want to admit that I have problems I can't deal with myself. It would be one thing if I could just go in and complain about my life, but having to confront and take responsibility for my shortcomings and insecurities is something I have no interest in.

More about this book:

It's one of ALA's Best Books for YAs 2008

Jake Wizner's web site. You'll want to check out his obituary generator and Top Ten lists, for sure. (He hates chocolate and peanut butter and loves gefilte fish with horseradish?!)


Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast: Warning: If you think my blog reviews are too detailed and spoilerish, you won't want to read this post.

Robin Brande liked it. (She wrote Evolution, Me, and Other Freaks of Nature, which I reviewed here.)

Flamingnet.com: One teenage girl's opinion (She recommends it for boys 14+.)

Life As We Knew It (booktalk)

Life As We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer
4Q 4P J/S

What made this book even creepier for me is that scientists right now are trying to figure out how to deal with an asteroid that may hit the Earth in 2038. I suspect that after you read this book, you’ll never be able to look at a full moon again without shivering just a little bit.

Miranda’s journal begins like any typical teenage girl’s. She writes about her grades, friends, fights with her mother, her new step-sibling-to-be, and her crush on a local Olympic-caliber skater. And she writes about the fuss all her teachers are making about the asteroid that’s supposed to hit the moon. They’re all excited because it’s supposed to be big enough to see with the naked eye, but not so big that anyone is particularly worried. They should have been. The asteroid is not only bigger than expected, it hits with much more force with expected. It knocks the moon out of orbit, much closer to Earth.

Is that really significant? You bet it is. It’s catastrophic. The first noticeable effect of the collision is the tsunamis that hit both coasts, causing massive flooding. Tidal waves twenty feet and higher hit as far inland as New York City. The Statue of Liberty is washed out to sea. Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard, the barrier islands off the Carolinas, Rhode Island, Hawaii, Alaska…all gone. Similar devastation is happening all over the world. Nobody knows how bad it’s going to get, but Miranda's mother suspects it's going to get a whole lot worse before it gets better, if it gets better. The family and an elderly neighbor head to the stores and fill cart after cart with canned and boxed foods, cat food, kitty litter, toilet paper, and anything and everything they think they could possibly use. They have no way of knowing how long the situation will last or how bad it will get, so everything has to be rationed, including their water and heating oil.

How bad does it get? Communication networks break down. It's next to impossible to make or receive phone calls. Mail is disrupted. Electricity is available only an hour or two a day. Soon, it's on for only minutes a day, and then not at all. With no electricity, no mail, no phone, no television, and no internet, there's no way to get any news at all. They are completely isolated. And the environmental devastation continues. After the tidal waves come the earthquakes. Then volcanoes begin to erupt, even ones that were dormant or far underground. So much ash is thrown into the air that the sun is completely blocked. The first hard frost comes in August. By September, it's not unusual for the temperature during the day to reach a high of 23 degrees. By October, it's below zero. There’s no heat and very little food. To make a bad situation worse, people are getting sick, and there are few doctors and even less medicine.

In her journal, Miranda wonders how they can possibly survive. The situation is desperate. If only one person in her family can survive, who should it be? It’s time to choose. She longs for life as she knew it, but she has to deal with life as it is, for as long as she possibly can. How long will that be?

Life as I Never Want to Know It

Life as We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer
5Q J/S

This book made me feel as tense and claustraphobic as What Happened to Cass McBride, even though it's an entirely different kind of book. When I read books like Anne Frank's The Diary of a Young Girl or read articles about people who have lived through horrific experiences like Rwanda, Sarajevo, or the Bataan Death March, I always wonder to myself how they made it through. I marvel when they turn their horrible experience into something positive instead of allowing themselves to become bitter and angry. "Could I do that?" I wonder. "Would I have survived, or would I have just given up?" I'd like to think that I'd survive with my spirit intact, but I don't know if I'm that strong. I hope I never have to find out, but I hope if the situation arises, I discover that I am. In Life as We Knew It, Miranda and her family discover that they are.

Sometimes the biggest events start out as nothing all that special. This is one of those times. Sure, people are talking about the asteroid that's about to hit the moon. This one is a little out of the ordinary because it's bigger than most asteroids that hit the moon. In fact, it's big enough that it can be seen with binoculars, not just a telescope. So it's a big enough event that Miranda's teachers are all giving moon/asteroid-related assignments, but not so big that anyone is worried. But they should have been. Because it turns out that the asteroid is not only bigger than scientists expected, it hits with much more force than expected. It hits with such force that the moon is knocked out of its orbit. It's pushed much closer to Earth than it was before.

So? Is that really significant? You bet it is. In fact, it's catastrophic. For one thing, the moon affects the tides. The first noticeable effect of the collision are the tsunamis that hit the coasts. By the next morning, there are reports of massive flooding all over the eastern seaboard and tidal waves of twenty feet or higher hitting cities as far inland as New York City. The Statue of Liberty is washed out to sea, Cape Cod, Nantucket, and Martha's Vineyard are completely submerged, the barrier islands off the Carolina coast are gone, and so is the entire state of Rhode Island. Hawaii and parts of Alaska are gone, too. And it's not just a United States problem. Similar devastation is happening around the world.

Nobody knows at first just how bad it's going to get. But Miranda's mother is smart enough to suspect that it's going to get a whole lot worse before it gets better. IF it gets better. She takes Miranda and her younger brother out of school, and the three of them and a neighbor head to the stores. They fill up cart after cart with canned and boxed foods, cat food and kitty litter, toilet paper, and anything and everything they think they could possibly use. Miranda's mother even buys seeds and cuttings, so they can plant their own vegetables. Because they have no way of knowing how long the situation will last or how bad it will get, everything has to be rationed, including their water and heating oil.

How bad does it get? After the tidal waves come the earthquakes. After the earthquakes come the volcanoes. Volcanoes that have been dormant for thousands of years or which are so far underground that they once posed no danger are erupting now. So much ash is thrown into the air that the sun is completely blocked. The first hard frost comes in August. By September, it's not unusual for the temperature during the day to reach a high of 23 degrees. By October, it's below zero. They can forget about growing plants for food. Communication networks break down. It's next to impossible to make or receive phone calls. Mail is disrupted. Electricity is available only an hour or two a day. Soon, it's on for only minutes a day. And then it's not on at all. With no mail, no phone, no television, and no internet, there's no way to get any news at all. They are completely isolated.

Miranda's journal begins on May 7 and ends on March 20. The early entries are typical of a teenage girl worried about her grades, her friends, fights with her mother, worries about her father and pregnant stepmother, and her fan-crush on a local Olympic-caliber skater. But as the crisis deepens, so do the journal entries, and the reader can't help but admire Miranda as she describes their struggles to survive. Though sometimes tempted to give up, she never does. It's inspiring. This is not a novel that's wrapped up neatly at the end. The situation is still dire. But we are left with an image of Miranda standing strong with a new sense of hope that better days are coming.

I highly recommend this book. It is not a comfort read. It will keep you on edge. You'll feel the cold and the hunger. But it will make you appreciate what you've got, both the material things and the people in your life you love. And maybe, like me, it'll make you think about what it takes to survive the tough times and come out stronger for it in the end.

By the way, this is the kind of book I wish would win the Printz. It is possible to have literary quality AND be something teens will actually read.

The Murder of Bindy Mackenzie by Jaclyn Moriarty

The Murder of Bindy Mackenzie by Jaclyn Moriarty
3Q 3P

I'm so sorry to write what I'm about to write. I loved Jaclyn Moriarty's Feeling Sorry for Celia and liked her Year of Secret Assignments. I was so looking forward to reading this one. And now I have a terribly letdown feeling, because frankly, it was just not fun to read. At almost 500 pages, it was a long slog, even though it's written in journal format, which usually means a book reads more quickly.

Bindy Mackenzie is an extraordinarily intelligent girl in what would be her junior year in high school if she lived in the U.S. instead of Australia. She is also one of the least liked girls in her school, although she tries to be helpful and friendly to everyone. The trouble is, Bindy's people skills aren't as well developed as her study skills, so her fellow students don't see her as being friendly and helpful. They see her as being condescending, overbearing, too smart for her own good, and at least a little strange. And you know what? She is. As I read this story, even hearing it from Bindy's point of view, I agreed with her classmates. If I'm going to read 500 pages of a novel, I want to like the person I'm reading about. And I didn't. Now, don't get me wrong. I didn't hate her. I just found her irritating and remarkably clueless about herself and her family. We often hear that journaling helps people find clarity and understand themselves better. But Bindy occasionally writes things in her journal (particularly in a section she calls her life story) that are pretty revealing if you have the least bit of ability to read between the lines. Apparently, as good a student as she is, this is not one of her skills, because things that raise flags for the reader (which include six fellow students in her FAD - Friendship and Development - group, not just the person reading the book) don't trigger any sort of reaction in her at all. She truly is clueless about herself and her family, and frankly, that was as annoying as it was (to me) unlikely. She's too smart not to pick up on such obvious clues.

Bindy has always been a top student - until this year. This year, things have changed. Not only has she moved in with her aunt and uncle, but her grades are plummeting and she often feels tired and sick. She refuses to see the doctor. Among other reasons, she's afraid he'll tell her she has glandular fever [aka mononucleosis], and only teenagers get that. Bindy believes she isn't a teenager. Bindy's school is trying a new class this year for Year Eleven students. It's called Friendship and Development, and it's supposed to be a support group for students, since Year Eleven is such a difficult year (like junior year here!). Bindy thinks the group is a total waste of time (and writes to the education authorities to say so - three times). Included in her FAD group are Elizabeth (from Feeling Sorry for Celia and Emily (from Year of Secret Assignments, Toby, who she used to be friendly with in elementary school, Astrid (who Bindy has an unpleasant history with), and Finnegan, a new student and her assigned buddy. (On page 430, I was still waiting for her to admit that she has a crush on Finnegan and to find out if the feeling was mutual.) On the first day of FAD, the class is asked to write a sentence about each person in the class. Bindy is crushed and angry to see what they write about her, and she doesn't handle it well. Her methods of retaliation backfire on her big time, and she eventually realizes she needs to apologize. She also realizes she hasn't done some assignments for her FAD teacher. To make up the work, she writes her life story for her FAD teacher. It is this assignment that her fellow FAD students later find, read, and decide is evidence that someone is trying to murder Bindy. (The evidence: she's tired, she can't concentrate, those plummeting grades, a strange mania for the word Cincinnati). After all, they reason, a lot of people have reason to want her out of their lives, including 1) the student she ratted out for drug use, 2) the students who can no longer use the school's intranet to share files because Bindy ratted them out, 3) the teachers she overheard having an argument that turns physical, 4) the principal, because he's tired of all the messages she sends him, or 5) her aunt and uncle, who need her room for the new baby. Is Bindy's life really in danger? Is she really being poisoned? It could be.

But this book isn't really a mystery, let alone a murder mystery. In Australia, where it was first published, the book is titled Becoming Bindy, and that really is what the book is about. Bindy understands so little about herself at the beginning of the school year, and she learns so much about herself (and other people!) by the end of it. She has become a new person.

Does this book have the same trademark humor that marked Moriarty's previous two books? I didn't think so. But reviews on Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com disagree with me. They found a lot more humor in it than I did (I did find some, though!). Overall, they like it more than I did. I'm really interested to hear what other people thought about this book, especially teens. In the meantime, I want to go back and read the other two books again, and I will still wait impatiently for the next Jaclyn Moriarty book!