Life on the Runway Isn't Easy

Model: A Memoir: Pretty Girl, Ugly Business by Cheryl Diamond
3.5Q 4P; Audience: J/S

Confession: I don't have a clue who Cheryl Diamond is, and I care not one whit about fashion or modeling. But positive reviews for the book caught my eye, and knowing that a lot of my teen patrons do like fashion-related things, I ordered it for the library. When it came in, I picked it up to check it out. I have to say, I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. Cheryl was just sixteen when she went to New York to try to break into the modeling business, and this book covers a year or so in her life. She writes about how she dealt with her less-than-supportive modeling agency, bizarre photographers and makeup artists, catty fellow models, and the numerous guys, some quite shady, who are always on the sidelines trying to hook up with a model. She describes what she had to go through to get bookings when her own agency was working against her, what it's like doing a runway show (Chaos! Don't smile! Walk like a horse!), the perks of being a model (bouncers love models!), and the downsides (it's an ego-bruising business). Even better, she's funny. The haughty look in her pictures hides a wicked sense of humor. I don't know that I can quite swallow all her stories as happening exactly as she tells them. She seems to have picked up on all the inside knowledge about the modeling business (and her own agency) almost as soon as she arrived, which seems unlikely for anyone, let alone a sixteen-year-old girl on her own in Manhattan. And she always has a witty comeback or smart aleck answer in any situation, which got not only a little tiresome but also seemed a little unlikely. Whether or not it all happened exactly as she claims, it makes for fun reading. It's also quite eye-opening. Even if I were gorgeous, twenty, and tall (none of which describe me in the least), I'd never want to be a model after reading this book.

Yeah, We Bad, We Dangerous, We Girls

Zombie Queen of Newbury High by Amanda Ashby
3Q 4P; Audience: J

I hear YA literature is branching out from the vampire craze to focus on zombies. There are several zombie books either recently or about to be published. The first one in this batch that I came across was Generation Dead by Dan Waters. His sequel, Kiss of Life, arrived in the library a month or so ago. I haven't read it yet, but I do hope he addresses all the holes he left wide open in Generation Dead. I'm a little curious to find out what happens with the Phoebe-Tommy-Adam triangle (what girl hasn't dreamt of falling in love with two zombies?), but I'm more inclined to flip through it rather than read it cover to cover. Generally speaking, zombies really aren't a big attraction for me. That being said, how could I resist a book with the title Zombie Queen of Newbury High? Simple answer: I couldn't.

Mia is not in the in-crowd, which makes it all the more surprising and thrilling when star football player Rob asks her out. What's not surprising is that the girls who are in the in-crowd are less than thrilled with the situation and that they intend to do something about it. What's a girl to do? Mia isn't sure, but her best friend Candice is: you go to the local magic shop and get a love potion, of course. Unfortunately, as is the way with such things, the love potion (which - caveat emptor - isn't exactly what it's advertised to be) goes awry. Suddenly everywhere she turns, students and even teachers are giving her cupcakes and kissing up to her. It would all be very flattering, if new boy Chase hadn't spoiled it all with the news that they're merely trying to fatten her up for the zombie feast they're planning. It seems that the entire school is about to be zombified, and it's all Mia's fault. If she doesn't find a way to stop the spell, the after-prom early morning breakfast is going to be her. ::ulp::

This is a quick, fun read. It's a great beach book or one to pick up when you're stressed with tests and papers and need something fun to relax you. It's not likely to be a book you remember as one that made a huge impact on your life. But who says every book has to be deep and significant?

The School for Dangerous Girls by Eliot Schrefer
3Q 3P; Audience: J/S


Hidden Oak is a school of last resort. If a girl has been thrown out of every other school, that's the kind of girl Hidden Oak wants. It's Hidden Oak's mission to take troubled girls and turn them into law-abiding models of society. They have a very high success rate. Many of their girls graduate and never step a foot out of line afterwards. They've learned to accept rules, maybe even to welcome them. But the girls who can't accept the rules, the girls who refuse to change...well, the world doesn't have to know about them. Those are the girls who disappear. They're never discussed, and they're never seen again. And you'd better believe that that makes them the really dangerous girls.

Mia is sent to Hidden Oaks after one too many incidents, culminating in one that leads to her grandfather's death. It's an eye-opening experience. Her cell phone is confiscated, there's no computer access, phone calls are not allowed, emails and letters are censored. Students are not to share the stories of their past indiscretions. The girls have individual and group therapy daily. Every rule of behavior must be strictly adhered to, or harsh punishment will swiftly follow. (Solitary confinement is a frequent option.) As the days and weeks go by, girls start disappearing, usually without explanation. Mia learns that some girls are promoted to the gold thread, where they live in a slightly less strict environment with regular classes and the chance to interact more normally with the other girls. But some of the girls just disappear. They're in the purple thread, and nobody want to talk about what happens to them. Is Mia purple or gold?

Mia winds up in the gold thread, but her rebellious nature isn't prepared to toe the line. That's especially true when she finds out about what happens to the purple thread girls and what the school's real intentions are. She's not going to take this sitting down. There has to be a way to close down this school. There may be indeed, but she'll never find it if the school succeeds in closing her down first. And they're going to do everything in their power to do just that.

I don't know why, but while I was reading this book, I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop. I didn't know for a long time what kind of book I was reading. Was this a tongue-in-cheek book, full of girl power and twists and turns, or was it exactly what it appeared to be? I don't know why I expected it to be the former rather than the latter. Perhaps it had something to do with the title, which (as it turns out) is meant to be taken absolutely literally, but which I assumed at first was hinting at something more along the lines of Ally Carter's I'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have to Kill You or Michael Spradlin's Spy Goddess. But this is not those books. My bad. I don't know why it took me so long to accept that. It was definitely a problem on my end, not the author's.

What Schrefer does best is the way he keeps leading his readers on, intriguing them with a hint here and a scrap of information there. I couldn't help but want to know what happened to all those missing girls and just why the purple thread was such a fearful label. And the payoff to that is real. Other reviews make reference to The Lord of the Flies, and it's an apt comparison. These girls are truly feral, and their situation is desperate. I admired Mia for her passion to fight against the wrongs being done to the girls. But those wrongs are where I felt the book went a bit astray. At some point, I have to believe that much of the faculty would step up to say that enough is enough, and that there's a point at which discipline passes into mistreatment or worse. That nobody does was hard to swallow. The romance angle was stretched past believability. Nobody would step in and stop the one teenage boy from playing Romeo with the girls? In a school like this? I have similar problems with the ending of the book and the role of one person in particular. It didn't seem to follow from what is set up earlier in the book. So I give this book points for an interesting main character and for the suspense it builds in the early parts as well as for the pulse-raising sequences involving the menaces of life among the purple thread. But that early promise didn't hold up throughout the book for me.

Sarah Dessen Does It Again

Along for the Ride by Sarah Dessen
4Q 5P; Audience: J/S

Count me in with those who love Sarah Dessen's books. Dessen has that ability to write about ordinary people with ordinary problems while never making them seem pedestrian. I often find myself wanting to know her characters better. I don't mean in the sense of "I'm not being told enough" but rather in the sense of " I'd enjoy hanging out with these people". I'm always a little sorry when I get to the last page and have to leave them behind.

In Along for the Ride, Auden is the daughter of college professors who are so intent on their own careers that they can't be bothered about the needs of their children. After years of being put through the ringer by their son, Hollis, they're delighted that Auden (several years younger) is quiet, obedient, and and overly mature for her age. So it escapes their notice that Auden has no real friends and that her only activities revolve around her academics. In fact, it pretty much escapes Auden's notice until the summer before she goes to college, when she looks around long enough to notice that her summer is stretching out before her as a long, endless plain of nothing to do and nobody to do it with. Hollis is backpacking around Europe having, as the picture frame he sends her says, "the best of times". What is she doing? Nothing. In an uncharacteristic bit of spontaneity, she calls her father to ask if she can spend the summer with him, his new wife, and their newborn daughter. To her surprise, he says yes. It's hardly the last surprise she'll get this summer.

In short order and with no intention of doing any of this, Auden finds herself hooking up with a boy she doesn't know, getting a job, and catching the attention of a mysterious loner. What is Eli's deal? It's clear that everyone likes him, so why does he hold himself apart from everyone? Eli and Auden share at least one thing in common: they're both insomniacs. They come together on those long summer nights when the rest of the world is sleeping and they share their stories and much, much more.

Musings:

The book explores the question of whether people can change. I think at least a few of the 5 W's come into play when you discuss the issue. Who you are, what's going on, whether or not you recognize a need, what's important to you and how much - - all of those things come into play.

Parent expectations can be a good thing or very destructive. Use the power wisely.

I wanted to take both of Auden's parents and shake them good and hard. Her father in particular needs to be slapped. You can't be selfish and be a good parent.

Auden's not perfect. Her prejudices and presuppositions and fears get in the way of her seeing people and situations clearly, and it takes her a while to realize it, and then a while longer to do something about it. Just like real life.

Food for thought: "Life shouldn't be about the either/or. We're capable of more than that, you know?"

Quests are a good thing. ("...I kind of liked the idea of searching for something you'd lost or needed. Or both.") And they're fun to read about, even if you call them chicken salad. (Read the book. You'll get it.)

Just reading about Isby's crying and Heidi's exhaustion made me want to cover my ears, hug Heidi, and take a nap. But mostly, I wanted to lock Auden's father in the nursery with the baby and take Heidi off to the beach.

My quibble, and it's actually a pretty significant one: I can buy that Auden's parents were oblivious when they were going through the divorce and didn't have a clue how often Auden sneaked out at night to hang out at Max's Diner. It's a little hard to believe that a fourteen-year-old could pull that off for the next four years without them tipping to it, though. And this summer, Auden's stepmother is up with the baby every night. Am I honestly expected to buy that she never once asks Auden where she's been or how late it is when Auden stumbles in as the sun is rising? That her father doesn't question it when he meets her on his way out the door? (Okay, at that point in the book her father has other things on his mind. Still.) Auden's insomnia is a pretty conceit and a nice way of giving her lots of quiet time to spend with Eli. But c'mon...somebody is going to notice that she's out all night every night and call her on it.

I really liked the development of the relationships. Auden struggles with accepting her parents as they are, and they (especially her mother) struggle with accepting her as the person she is becoming. It's not easy and it's not always pleasant. Her friendship with Eli grows naturally. She doesn't meet him one day and decide she's in love with him the next. (Good move. Eli is a person well worth the time it takes getting to know him.) Similarly, Auden doesn't go from being clueless about how to hang out with other girls to being best friends in an instant. People have to tell her things and explain how friendship works before she gets it, and it's even longer before it comes to her naturally. That felt really organic to me. I also appreciated her slow realization that Heidi (her stepmother) isn't an airhead trophy wife after all. And watching Auden bond with Isby is just plain sweet.

Read Along for the Ride. Then hop on your bike and take a nice long ride with a friend. You'll be glad you did both.


Edited 7/17/09 to add a link to a blog that linked to this post:
Here's what the YAYAYAs thought about Along for the Ride. And you get a bonus book, too!

Another reading roundup

As you may have gathered from the long drought since my last (well, last-but-one) post, it's been a hectic time here at the library. I've read lots of books but have had no time to post about them. The post I put up today about The Comet's Curse was started back in May! I've got at least seven more books I've been toting around for anywhere from a day to ...weeks, and I need to get them out in circulation where they belong, so I'm going to forego anything other than brief plot descriptions (which you may prefer anyhow) and just give you my impressions.

Swim the Fly by Don Calame
4Q 4P; Audience: S

Three fifteen-year-old boys make a pact to see a real live naked girl by the end of the summer. There's not a lot they won't do to make that goal a reality, including dressing in drag. Matt compounds that probably unattainable goal with another: swimming the 100-yard butterfly in multiple swim meets. This, from a guy whose best showing in any swim meet using even his best stroke is a fifth-place ribbon. Did I mention the butterfly is the most grueling race of all? Why is he doing this? Why, to impress a girl, of course. Yeah, like watching a skinny dude flail in the pool as he slowly turns blue and goes under is going to do that!

Swim the Fly is going to have a lot of fans among teenage boys. It's fun, it's fast moving, and it's definitely got its share of gross out moments. (There's a scene in the girl's locker room involving laxatives and the girl of Matt's dreams that made me squirm but will make most readers howl with laughter.) Matt's a likeable guy, and you can't help but root for him. He's patient (and funny) with his lovelorn grandfather, sweetly oblivious with (and about) girls, and a loyal friend. My favorite scenes were those with Matt and Ulf (the kind of swim instructor that would make Michael Phelps quiver in fear) and Matt and Valerie ("she's just a girl, not the girl". Matt, you're such a dimwit!). I also enjoyed the banter between Matt and his friends Coop and Sean. It captured the way boys really do talk to each other. (Calame must have scoured the Internet so he could pad their conversations with just about every possible synonym for a particular male body part. I confess to thinking "enough already" more than once!) Coop and Sean are, shall we say, a little less scrupulous than Matt when it comes to playing by the rules and definitely ingenious when it comes to breaking them. While their actions are not always admirable, they will definitely get their readers cheering them on.

I suspect that this is a book that boys will not only enjoy reading, they'll also recommend it to their friends.

Soul Enchilada by David Gill
3Q 3P; Audience: J/S

Here's another one I think boys will like, which is not to say that girls won't enjoy it too.

Bug Smoot is on her own, and things aren't looking good. Just about the only thing she has to her name is the Cadillac her grandfather left her when he died. What her grandfather didn't tell her is that he also left her something else: an unfulfilled contract with Mr. Beals, aka Beelzebub. Nothing says "I love you" like a contract with the devil. What does Mr. Beals want? The car for starters. Her soul for dessert. But Bug is not about to give up either without a fight. Good thing she has Pesto on her side, given that Pesto knows a thing or two about fighting demons and devils.

I heard David Gill speak at a conference a couple of years ago, and I knew he could be laugh out loud funny, so I was looking forward to reading this book. It wavers between humor and horror more than I expected, though I'd recommend it to someone who wants to laugh sooner than I'd suggest it to someone who likes to be scared. I have to say that the details of the plot haven't stuck in my mind as much as the characters have. I'd say that readers who enjoy a book for the people they meet in it will probably like this more than readers who love to chew over what actually happens. But how can you go wrong with a feisty girl who refuses to give the devil his due? Bug isn't frightened by Mr. Beals. She's just royally ticked off that trying to get rid of him means getting hairspray and coyote piss all over her beautiful, shiny, clean car. Their conversations have snap and wit. Equally fun, though for different reasons, is her relationship with Pesto. Bug's not sure what to make of this guy who claims to know all about demons and how to get rid of him. But he's nice, he's hot, and he doesn't run when things get tough. He even puts up with her surliness, and Bug does surly very, very well. What's not to like? At the end, Gill deftly pulls seemingly random things together for a very satisfying climax. (Warning: there's a definite ick factor involved in fighting the devil for your soul. It's not stomach-churning stuff, but there are a few descriptions I'd prefer not to read just before going to bed.)

Evermore by Alison Noel
3Q 5P; Audience: J/S

Ever is an orphan at seventeen, and it's all her fault. If only she hadn't...But she did, and the car crashed, and her parents and younger sister died. She'd have died, too, if she hadn't chosen to linger in that strange, beautiful land they entered after the accident. They were all together, heading towards the bridge and whatever was on the other side. But Ever stopped, and when she looked around, her family was crossing the bridge and she couldn't reach them before they disappeared. The next thing she knew, a beautiful man's face appeared over hers, calling her name. And there she was, back in the real world again. Alone. But never really alone now, because now she hears everything that everyone around her is thinking. Touching someone spills all their secrets. And everyone has an aura. Ever is psychic now, and it's tearing her apart. She can find no peace. Until Damen enters the picture. Beautiful Damen. Damen, who can produce flowers from thin air. Damen, who does not have an aura, whose thoughts she can not hear, and whose touch brings a blessed respite from the constant barrage of thought-noise. Damen, who she can not help but love, but who she has reason not to trust.

Fans of the Twilight books are going to love this one. It is not a vampire story, but it is a love for the ages story. Of all the characters, Ever is the only one who felt close to three-dimensional to me. Her despair over her unwanted powers, her desperate attempts to shield herself from a world that assaults her senses past bearing, her love for and need for her sister Riley (who makes several appearances) all made sense. And I could certainly believe her attraction to Damen, and I appreciated that she wasn't a patsy about it. He gives her plenty of reason to doubt him, so doubt him she does. No "he's gorgeous and mysterious, and yes, he's dangerous, but so what?" for Ever! I like a girl who uses her head when it comes to falling in love. Damen isn't nearly as well-rounded, but the appeal is clear. Aside from his ability to soothe her senses, he's charming, talented, romantic, and sensitive. (And he cooks, too!) The romantic tension works. That being said, I do have some problems with the book. First of all, most of the other characters are one-dimensional, particularly Drina, Matt, and Aunt Sabine. More disturbing, I hate it when an author sets something supernatural up, but when it comes to explaining how it all works, cops out with "well, the whole thing is just too complicated to explain, so just trust me, okay?" After Damen explains things to Ever, she and the reader are left almost as much in the dark as we were before. Nope. Sorry. Don't create the devil if you can't figure out how to give us the details. And c'mon: (SPOILER ALERT! If you want to know what else really bothered me, use your mouse to highlight the next few words.) Isn't it an oxymoron for an immortal to be able to die?

Don't read this book expecting anything deep or particularly logical. Just enjoy the story, the romance, the tension, and the supernatural touches. And if you like this book and have already read the Twilight books, you may want to try Golden and (link is to my blog post) Platinum by Jennifer Barnes next.

My next post will be another reading round up. I hope to get it up soon, sooner, soonest.

The Plague! The Plague! Someone Save Us!

The Comet's Curse by Dom Testa
3Q 3P; Audience: M/J

When the comet Bhaktul flits through Earth's atmosphere, it leaves universally fatal death-dealing particles behind. It won't be long until everyone is dead. Is there any chance that a cure will be found before that happens? Is there any chance the civilization can be saved? With the scientists and doctors dying, it looks unlikely. But Dr. Wallace Zimmer isn't willing to take no for an answer to either question. The virus doesn't affect people until they turn eighteen. If he can put together the right group of kids and get them away from Earth, perhaps they'll be able to find the way to defeat the virus and Earth's civilization. After an intensive search and training period, 251 of Earth's brightest teenagers are sent into space to colonize Eos, a new planet. It will take years for them to arrive and create a new life for themselves. But if they make it, they'll have beaten Bhaktul and Earth will, in some way, have survived.

The crew is carefully chosen for their intelligence, physical fitness, and emotional stability. They are carefully and rigorously trained for the formidable task ahead of them. The Galahad has everything they will need for a long space voyage, including farming facilities, living areas, and game and training rooms to keep them physically fit. And they have Roc, their walking (well, almost), talking, wisecracking supercomputer. Yes, they're young. But they're well prepared, brilliant, and ready for anything. Except, perhaps for the stowaway who is threatening to scuttle their mission before they've had a chance to truly begin it.

Musings:

I wanted to like this book, which is the first in the Galahad series. I was prepared to accept the improbability of a bunch of kids being the saviors of civilization. If it's done well, that premise can be exciting reading. But this is not done particularly well. The characters show some promise, but they are not yet fully developed. The story plays out predictably. The identity of the stowaway is not much of a surprise. But my major issue with the book is the lack of subtlety in the writing. For instance, Testa takes great pains to make sure his readers know that the crew is made up of teens of every ethnicity and culture. Here he introduces Gap, one of the five teens who make up the ship's governing council:

Gap thought of his early childhood in China, raised as an only child by his parents, both of whom were college professors. An early interest in gymnastics was fueled by his training with a former Olympic champion...[Then his parents relocated the family to America] And although his parents were concerned about the abrupt change in his life, Gap immediately accepted the challenge of meeting new people and forming new friendships. It seemed everyone warmed to him as soon as they met him...his school grades reflected his obvious intellect. He kept up his training with gymnastics, keeping an eye on that Olympic future.

Okay, we get it. Gap's Chinese, athletic, very intelligent, and very likeable. All of that could have been shown to us instead of told so bluntly. With Lita, the teen in charge of the infirmary, Testa first goes out of his way to tell us her ethnicity, but then he slips the same information in much more naturally. Which is more effective?

"Lita's black eyes and Latin American skin spoke of her upbringing in Mexico."
or, just a few pages later: "her eyes focused on a glass cube that sat atop a folder. The cube was filled with sand and small pebbles, one of the personal items from her home near the beach in Mexico."

Similarly, Testa works awfully hard to make us find Roc amusing:

I, on the other hand, will continue to be the same sophisticated, charming, and witty intellect that I've always been...I've got reserves of charm that I probably won't begin to tap for years. You're very lucky to know me. Don't you feel lucky?

and

...I obviously talk to the crew, I run the life-support systems on the ship, I answer questions, and I have a lovely singing voice. If you're a girl, and I'm a flesh-and-blood boy, you're all over me... You and I have the same information, so we'll both have to puzzle it out. The only difference is that I'm incredibly smart. Not that you aren't, but when you can recite the table of elements in twenty-six languages, get back to me.

I wish he'd just relax and let his characters be instead of having his author's voice be so intrusive.

I do think this series has the potential to be an intriguing read for younger teens who enjoy science fiction. I'm curious to see what Testa has in mind as the trip goes on and the kids first have to decide if they want to keep the same Council leaders and if not, what the fallout to that decision might be and then (and especially) when they land on Eos and have to create their own civilization. Will they try to maintain what they know from Earth, or will they try to build something completely different? What difficulties will they face? And what will they find in those rooms in the storage areas that are so mysteriously locked for the duration of the voyage? And of course, we already have a budding romance and a brooding leader who may spell trouble. What sort of fireworks will result from all that? Will they be the sort that inspire a satisfied "ahhh!" or the kind that makes one run for cover?

Shall I Stay or Shall I Go?

If I Stay by Gayle Forman
5Q 4P; Audience: J/S

It's no secret that a lot of teens fight with their parents on a regular basis and are waiting impatiently to graduate high school and go to college, preferably someplace away. Mia is not one of those teens. Her family is close. They don't just love each other, they like each other and enjoy spending time together. So when there's a rare snow day in their little part of Oregon, Mia's parents decide it's a perfect day for a family car trip and Mia and her little brother Teddy enthusiastically agree. The snow's not the kind that amounts to anything, so they figure it's perfectly safe. It's not. The four of them are happily talking and listening to music when a four-ton pickup truck going sixty miles per hour plows into them so hard the force of it tears off the doors and pushes the passenger seat clear through the driver's side window.

You don't walk away from an accident like that. Except...Mia does. When the sounds of the crash stop echoing, she can still hear Beethoven's Cello Sonata no. 3 playing. She walks up the embankment and sees the devastation: the crumpled car, the pipe in her father's pocket and his brains scattered on the pavement, her mother's blue lips and red eyes that make her look more like a zombie than someone who was laughing and breathing and living just two minutes ago. But where is Teddy? She frantically searches for a sign of him. There! His hand, sticking out a ditch! But when she gets closer, she realizes the hand sticking out of the ditch isn't Teddy's. It's wearing her bracelet, and the body is wearing her clothing. The body isn't Teddy's. It's hers. No, you don't walk away from an accident like that.

Mia doesn't understand what's going on, why she and her body seem to be two separate things. What she does understand is that her parents are dead and her brother is badly injured. She understands that she can walk, invisible, among her doctors, her friends, and her relatives. She can hear their conversations, but she can't communicate with them. She can only watch them as they sit in the waiting room or by her bedside, grieving and loving. It is a nurse's comment that eventually gives her a clue. If she's "running the show", does that mean that if she lives or dies is up to her? If so, should she stay or should she go? How you make a decision like that?

Musings:
The love in this book is almost palpable. Reading Mia's flashbacks of times spent with her family made me wish I could be a part of their circle. Teddy is adorable, and Mia's parents, both music-loving former hippies, are wise, loving, and totally cool. Two weeks after finishing the book, Mia's father still feels real to me. I melted a little when Mia described his transition from hippie to middle school teacher, and I'm getting a warm feeling from just remembering how he and her mother talked Mia through her first-recital fears. These were good people. Mia's boyfriend Adam is just as likable. He's a rocker and she's a classical cellist. Despite that seemingly wide difference in sensibilities, music both brings and binds them together. The expression "She played me like a cello" has a whole new (and fairly erotic) meaning for me now. Mia is not a romantic. Even as she describes their tender moments and first kisses, she doesn't try to pretend that the relationship didn't have less rosy moments or that she wasn't always secure in it. There's a maturity to their relationship and the way she understands it that resonates.

Music is a constant thread throughout the book. Whether it's rock or classical, music is the common language, and it doesn't matter that they aren't speaking the same dialect. Music is love, and love is music. The book is music is love.

If I Stay is heartbreaking and poignant, life-affirming, and powerful in its simplicity and depth. I can't wait to share it with other readers.

All That Glitters Is Not Gold

Need by Carrie Jones
3Q 5P; Audience: J/S

Imagine this: There's a small, isolated town in Maine. Boys start disappearing from that town. Not just one boy. A few. No clues are left behind. No signs of struggle, no footprints to track. Maybe just a little gold glitter here and there. No arrests are ever made, but after a few weeks the disappearances stop. But the boys are never seen again. Now picture this: It's about thirty years later. Zara, a South Carolina girl through and through, hates the cold and has no interest in living in a small backwoods town. But her stepfather has recently died, and she is so devastated by his death that her mother is afraid she's going to do something drastic and final. She needs to get her daughter away from the pain of her memories. Where can she send her? She sees no choice but to send Zara to live with her stepgrandmother up in Maine, to the same town where all those boys disappeared so long ago. To a town where boys are disappearing again.

Zara arrives in Maine depressed and angry. She also thinks she might be going a little crazy. She keeps seeing this guy everywhere she goes: in the airport when she left home, in the airport when she got to Maine, on the road on her way to her grandmother's. Who is this guy? What does he want from her?

Zara goes to school depressed, angry, and scared. A kid in a fancy car almost smashes into her in the parking lot. Sparks fly. He's Nick. He's hot. He's bad. Need I say what happens next?

Of course, there's another rival for Zara's affections, as well as new friends. There are also secrets and danger. A lot of both, in fact. Because that mysterious guy Zara keeps seeing? He isn't good news. Pixies tend not to be. Especially pixies who kidnap young boys and have plans for Zara.

Unlike some other heroines of recent supernatural-themed books, Zara is not the type to sit around and be babied. True, she's a pacifist and quite familiar with various phobias, but she's also feisty and angry, and she's not about to be bullied around, whether it's by Nick, Luke, or a pixie. Whatever the pixie king wants, pacifist or not, he's not going to get it without a fight.

Musings, leaning towards a rant:

I was prepared to like Need a lot, based on what I'd heard about it. And I thought I did like it. It was, for the most part, an enjoyable read. But every time I think about it now that I've finished it, I find myself getting more and more frustrated with it, because I think an interesting premise and likable characters were compromised by poor logic and unbelievable character actions.

I'm a librarian. I use the Internet every day to find information. Google is my friend, but it's not a miracle worker. No way do they have enough information to plug into Google and find the answer to who/what is stalking Zara. I know that sounds like a petty complaint, and maybe a lot of people wouldn't even notice, but it took me right out of the book.

I had a hard time believing the sequence of events. Wouldn't you think that when boys started to disappear again, the people who had inside knowledge of what had happened thirty years ago would realize what's probably happening again? Wouldn't you think that the werefolk (highlight to see the missing word) who battled the pixies before would give their kids the training and information they need to battle them again, instead of letting them figure it all out themselves? Isn't that the logical thing? Then why doesn't it happen? This whole aspect of the book (the werefolk ) felt strangely incomplete and underdeveloped.

Last, but hardly least, and trying not to say too much: Zara's mother sending her back to Maine in this situation? Not buying it.

Read this one for the fun of it, but turn down the volume on your inner critical reader first.