A Joy Ride + a Fair Day = Something Much More

The Miles Between by Mary E. Pearson
4Q 3P; Audience: J/S)

October 19th has always had a special significance for Destiny Faraday. It's her birthday. It's her mother's birthday, too. It's the day she first got sent away to boarding school (that was ten long years ago). It's the day that her aunt always comes to visit her. Since her family has virtually ignored her for all of those ten years, the visits from her aunt are highly anticipated events. Or at least, they're as anticipated as Destiny will allow herself to be, since she's practiced for years not to let herself expect or hope for anything. But this year, her aunt can't come, and Destiny lets herself get angry enough to wish, just for once, for one fair day, a day where everything happens the way it should happen. When a pink convertible with keys in the ignition (and money in the glove compartment) appears on the school lawn, it seems as though it's practically inviting her to jump in. The problem is, she can't drive. But she knows somebody who can, and he's already in trouble. So...

And thus begins an unplanned and unauthorized car trip. Just Destiny and three of her classmates: the new boy who intrigues her, the always-rational boy who exasperates her, and the too-cheery dormmate who is always friendly despite Destiny's attempts to push her away. They, too, feel a need for one fair day. What they get is a day full of surprises, some small and some shocking. At the end of the day, what Destiny gets is more than she dared let herself hope for. From now on, October 19th will be the day her life started again.

Musings:
This was a quick read, but I think that's a little deceptive. This is probably a book that would be worth going back to read a second time, just to notice the small details and nuances that were easy to miss the first time through. Like Christopher Wooding, there have been times when I just haven't gotten Mary Pearson (David v. God and Scribbler of Dreams). But The Adoration of Jenna Fox deserved most of the acclaim it got, and I absolutely loved (and cried over) A Room on Lorelei Street. I'm becoming a convert.

Who can't relate to wanting a day that everything goes right, especially when so much is actually going wrong? The book has a good hook right there. I liked the feel of this book. I really enjoyed some of the quiet moments, particularly those when Destiny and Seth were beginning to connect. The lamb (oops, my bad: the lambadoodle) purely and simply made me smile. And I thought the gradual bonding, coupled as it was with Destiny's gradual realization (mostly through watching Aiden and Mira interact) that her perceptions of the way things are may need to be adjusted, was well done. Those lighter moments were nicely interwoven with darker tones. It's clear that there's something disturbing going on in Destiny's life. What, after all, could a seven-year-old girl have done to make her parents send her away and refuse to let her come home for all these years? Why is she so overwhelmingly guilty and so desperately determined not to let herself get close to anyone? To be honest, I was ahead of the game figuring out at least some of that. But seeing how it all played out was still quite satisfying and cathartic. I appreciated how everything that went into this one fair day, whether it was something as big as meeting the President or as small as a touch of a hand, helped bring Destiny to the point where she could begin to accept the truth and move on in a healthier direction.

While I'm going to tag this as realistic fiction, that's not strictly accurate. There's just enough of a hint of the supernatural, or something akin to it, to intrigue. At the very least, destiny is at work in this story of the carefully-named Destiny Faraday.

Snarky and Sad

Cracked Up to Be by Courtney Summers
4Q 3P; Audience: S

A couple of months ago I was on the hold list for several books that hadn't come in yet (naturally, later about six of them came in at once!) and the books I wanted to read otherwise were all checked out. I was searching desperately for something captivating to read. I was working in the Teen Room when one of my teen regulars started talking about a book from my New Books display she'd been reading, saying it was really funny and very good. She couldn't take it out at the time, so I snagged it. Thanks for the recommendation, Adriana! It was exactly what I was looking for.

I laughed in the beginning, too. I enjoy a good bit of snark, and Parker Faraday is very, very good at snark. But as I read on, the more it became apparent that this is no light-hearted book, and Parker is not a happy girl. In fact, Parker has been on a downward spiral for months. She's gone from being the straight-A's captain of the cheerleading squad to flunking her classes and alienating all her friends. She's having panic attacks. She's come to school drunk and attempted suicide. What we don't know is why any of this happened. And that is only revealed little by little, mostly at times when Parker is desperately trying (and failing) not to remember.

Parker makes no effort to be a nice person. She gets a charge out of her ability to manipulate people. Crying and alluding to her suicide attempt are good ways to get her parents and guidance counselor to back off. She uses sarcasm, brutal honesty, and downright unkindness to push everyone close to her away. She sets her former boyfriend Chris up with Becky, the new captain of the cheerleading squad who sets her teeth on edge, then proceeds to rub Chris's obvious preference for her in Becky's face. When a new boy asks stops her to ask where the art room is, she tells him she can't stop to talk since she's late for class. Ten minutes later, he walks into the art room, only to find her sitting there waiting for him.

That new boy is Alex, and much to her chagrin, he isn't easy to push away. First of all, he's her partner on an art project. Secondly, he's intrigued by her. As hard as she tries to alienate him, he keeps coming back. Chris and Becky, too, refuse to go away. And the more they hang around, the harder it is for Parker to lie to herself, to forget what she's trying to forget. She's trying to hold it together long enough to graduate and get out of this town forever, but the memories and the guilt keep coming back.

Musings:

I was very surprised at the turn this book took. The first few pages didn't prepare me for the guilt, aching sadness, and desperate fear that lie underneath Parker's facade. I think that's way Parker would want it, and it's a really effective way of mirroring what's going on with her.

The push-pull of Parker's relationship with Alex is very well done. When Parker decides that at some level she wants Alex in her life, she's very upfront with him: she kiss him and maybe even sleep with him, but she'll never be his girlfriend, and she'll never say she loves him. He's free to use her, too. But underneath it all, what she won't admit to herself is that she's relieved he won't go away. Alex's reactions to all of this are honest and believable. I hurt for him, but I had to admire his own inner strength as he seems to understand at some level Parker's need to use him as a punching bag.

While the actual events that lead up to Parker's crash and burn are fairly easy to guess at after the first few flashbacks, what I found truly fascinating was what got her into the situation in the first place. What we often look at as a positive personality trait can in fact be very destructive, a truth that's often not apparent until the situation reaches a crisis point. I think a lot of people (not just teens) will relate to the pressure Parker feels and the panic and anger that follow when she realizes that trying to live up to her own and everyone else's expectations just isn't possible. What follows may be extreme, but by the time I learned the whole truth, I was willing to follow wherever Summer led me.

This is not a light read. Alcohol plays a big role in Parker's downward spiral, and she's matter-of-fact about her sexual experiences. The emotions and sometimes the language are rough. Parker may not be forthcoming about what happened in the past, but she's not pulling her punches about how she sees things in the present. Older teens who like books with an edge will appreciate all of this. Younger readers and those who prefer a softer picture of adolescent life would probably prefer to look elsewhere. As for me, I'm looking forward to reading Summers's upcoming book, Some Girls Are.

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!

Real Girl vs Winter Girl

Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson
5Q 4P; Audience: (J)/S

Horrifying. Mesmerizing. Shocking. Tragic. Heartrending. Devastating. Exhausting. Unforgettable.

Back when Lia was a real girl, her parents weren't divorced. She had a best friend. She wasn't a fat pig. She wasn't starving herself. She wasn't cutting. She wasn't a wintergirl.

Wintergirl. Dead girl walking. That's what the kids at school call her. Being a wintergirl is just fine with Lia. That way she doesn't need to feel anything. But it doesn't really work that way. Lia feels too much. She just wishes she didn't feel anything. That was easier before Cassie died, before Cassie started haunting her, leaving her scent of cinnamon, cloves, and sugar hanging in the air along with her accusations and her entreaties to join her on the other side.

Lia and Cassie were best friends, right up until they weren't. They played together, got crushes on boys together, hated their parents together, got drunk together. They made a pact together: they would be the skinniest girls in school. ("But I'll be skinnier than you," said Lia.) Cassie binges and purges. Lia starves herself. They'll stay strong together. And then one day, Cassie turns her back on Lia. She won't even speak to her. Which is why, months later, Lia doesn't answer the phone when Cassie calls and calls and calls. (1...2...3...8...10...15...18...22...25...29...30...31...31...32...33. Silence.) Cassie is talking to her now. Now that she's dead, Cassie won't stop speaking to Lia, creeping into her room at night, following her to appointments, haunting her. If Lia stays strong, maybe she can make Cassie go away. Maybe she can make everything go away.

Musings and Quotes:

This was an achingly difficult and utterly engrossing book. While making note of some of the lines I wanted to quote, I also wrote "I feel trapped." There were times I felt I couldn't breathe. I could read only thirty or forty pages at a time before I had to take a break from it. But not everyone will feel that way. I handed the book to my fifteen-year-old niece and she didn't pick her eyes off the pages until she finished it less than four hours later.

The use of strikeouts ("my parents Dr. Marrigan and Professor Overbrook" or (paraphrasing) "I just want sweet, creamy, delicious ice cream slipping down my throat dry toast") to show the difference between what Lia thinks and feels and what she'll allow herself to acknowledge is brilliant.

There's a quotable line on every page (every paragraph). The language is evocative and the imagery is stunning. I know that I'm going to get hundreds of hits on this page, because that's what happens when I quote from Laurie Halse Anderson. Please, do yourself a favor. Read the book. Let yourself be moved by it. Quotes can give you the flavor of a book, but they can't do justice to it.

"Here stands a girl clutching a knife. There is grease on the stove, blood in the air, and angry words piled in the corner. We are trained not to see it, not to see any of it. (...body found in a motel room, alone...) Someone just ripped off my eyelids." (p. 4)

"If I weren't so tired, I'd shove trust and issue down the garbage disposal and let it run all day." (p. 6)

"Last week's Thanksgiving was artificially sweetened, enriched with tense preservatives, and wrapped in plastic." (p. 30)

"Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of strange little girls screaming through their fingers...I scroll through our confessions and rants and prayers, desperation eating us one slow bloody bite at a time." (P. 112)

" 'What words are in your head right now, Lia?' Pissed. Pig. Hate...Jail. Coffin. Cut...Hungry. Dead." (pp. 115-116)

"I'm sure she's [Lia's mother] waiting for me in the family room, temperature at fifty-eight degrees, her lecture notes neatly arranged with my faults and mistakes listed in order of priority. She has charts to prove everything I do is wrong, and that my only hope is to allow them to insert her stem cells in my marrow so she can grow a new her dressed in my skin." (p. 148)

"Cassie opens her Pandora's box every night and hitches a ride to my room. She doesn't watch from the shadows anymore. She attacks. Once the sleeping pill straps my arms and legs down to the mattress, she opens my skull and rips out the wiring. She screams holes in my brain and pukes blood down my throat." (p. 183)

Laurie Halse Anderson has done it again. Wintergirls is going to join Speak as one of the classics of YA literature.

Choose One: Safe vs Real

Marcelo in the Real World by Francisco X. Stork
4Q 3P; Audience: J/S; recommended mainly to Gr. 9+

Wow. I started hearing raves about this book months ago from people had received ARCs (Advanced Reading Copies). I told one of my patrons about it and we've both been waiting impatiently for it to finally be published. Now that it's come in, I understand the high praise. It was worth the wait.

Marcelo doesn't operate in the world the way most people do. His condition can't be precisely defined, but he falls somewhere along the high-functioning end of the autism spectrum. He has difficulty expressing himself and reacting spontaneously. It's easy for him to get overloaded by visual and aural stimuli, and it's hard for him to concentrate on more than one thing at a time. He is obsessed with music and religion. Marcelo knows exactly how he wants to spend the summer before his senior year: working with the horses at Paterson, his school. It's the perfect job for him. Working with animals is easier than dealing with people, and Paterson is a quiet, safe environment. He'll be interacting with kids like himself and the teachers and staff members who work with them. His needs will be understood and nobody will challenge him. But his father has other plans for him. Arturo has never really accepted Marcelo's diagnosis or believed that Paterson was the best place for him. He thinks it's time for Marcelo take his place in the real world, where he'll be challenged, not coddled the way he is at school, so he's arranged for Marcelo to work in the mail room of his law firm. And he thinks Marcelo should attend the local high school for his senior year instead of returning to Paterson. Marcelo is resistant, but he has to admit that his father has always been fair to him and he thinks he can trust him (if trusting him means believing him). He reluctantly makes a deal with his father: If Marcelo works in the mail room and succeeds in following the rules of the real world for the summer, his father will let Marcelo decide which school to attend in the fall. If he doesn't succeed, Marcelo will attend the local high school.

Marcelo's experiences at the law firm range from comfortable enough to deeply upsetting. Though he knows that his boss, Jasmine, wanted someone else to get his job, she is patient with him. She doesn't overwhelm him with talk and she trusts him to do the job properly once it is explained to him. It surprises him to realize by mid-summer that they've actually become friends. But there are other people who are less willing to accept Marcelo's idiosyncrasies, and they make it difficult for him. And Wendell, the son of the other partner in the law firm, intends to take as much advantage of him as he possibly can. Marcelo's been warned about Wendell, and it's advice worth heeding. Wendell wants something from Marcelo, and he makes it clear that if Marcelo doesn't come through for him, he'll make sure Marcelo comes out on the losing end of his deal with his father.

It's stressful enough for Marcelo to have to deal with the demands, both work-related and interpersonal, of his job. But his stress level gets unbearably high when he comes across information about a major lawsuit the firm is a part of and realizes that the world isn't black and white and neither are people's motives. What should he do with this information, and what will it cost him in the end?

Musings

Many things come into play in this beautifully written book, including friendship, love, trust, sex, good vs evil, and morality. Almost all of it worked for me. Whether it's by having Marcelo explain his own thought processes or in his conversations with his mother and his rabbi counselor/friend, I loved the way Stork illustrated how Marcelo perceives the world and why things that seem unworthy of remark to most of us cause Marcelo to question them. I was rather fascinated by how his mind worked and by what processes he arrived at conclusions. In an odd way, I felt privileged to be given this entry into his world.

I appreciated exploring the dynamics of Marcelo's various relationships. I just this moment realized that the people Marcelo finds easiest to relate to (his mother, his sister, his rabbi counselor, Jasmine) are all women. He's perplexed by his father and frankly frightened and confused by Wendell. Hmmm. I wonder if there's any significance to that.

Without going into specifics, I have some quibbles. I felt there was an inconsistency between what Jasmine says and what she does, mostly in regards to Vermont issues, and some of the scenes in that section of the book felt somewhat out of place with the rest of the book. And despite the growth Marcelo makes over the summer, I still felt that certain things play out too patly in the end, which made me change my initial rating from a 5 to a 4.

I'd recommend this book to high school readers, who will most appreciate Marcelo's struggle with moral dilemmas and following his own dreams vs his father's, and relate to his attempts to understand interpersonal relationships, including sexual ones. It will require a somewhat patient and mature reader who enjoys books that have as much to do with interior events as with outside action.
It is also a book that I would have no hesitation about recommending to adults, whether they self-identify as appreciators of young adult literature or not.

Quote: The world will always poke you in the chest with its finger.

That line really struck me when I read it. I liked the insight it gave into Marcelo and perfectly illustrates that he sees the world as threatening and oppressive. But in the larger context, it's just such vivid, evocative imagery.

There were other things worth quoting, but I had to give the book to my impatient reader before I really had the chance to search through it again for things I didn't write down when I should have!

Boy Toy

Boy Toy by Barry Lyga
5Q 3P Audience: S

I usually try to come up with something a little quirky or at least more interesting than "title of book" for my subject lines. But I can't do that with this book. Boy Toy is too disturbing to treat it lightly. It was a hard book to read, not because of how it was written, but because of its subject matter. At times, I almost didn't want to pick it back up again, because it was so hard to read about Josh's experiences. But it is also a compelling read. You don't finish Boy Toy, close the cover, and grab the next book on your pile. You need time to decompress afterwards.

The topic, sexual situations, and language mark Boy Toy as a book for older teens. Lyga isn't coy about his topic. Though the writing is not explicit, it is abundantly clear exactly what Eve is doing to Josh. I was uncomfortable reading certain passages, as I think most readers will be. (It should be uncomfortable to read about sexual abuse.) Boy Toy is well written, thought provoking, and deeply unsettling. It deserves its place on ALA's BBYA 2008 list and its Cybil Award. But readers should know going in that it's also a book that will evoke strong reactions.

When Josh walks into his seventh grade history class, his instant reaction is that his teacher is HOT. He fantasizes about Mrs. Sherman in all the ways a twelve-year-old boy knows how to fantasize. But he is in no way prepared for what happens next. When Mrs. Sherman asks him to be a part of a study she is doing for one of her graduate classes, he doesn't realize where she intends it to lead. He just likes the idea, since it means they'll spend a lot of time alone together. At first, they work in the classroom after school, but soon they begin to work at Miss Sherman's house. It's cool. She has an X-box, a Playstation, and every kind of video game a twelve-year-old could ever want. He gets to spend time with a beautiful woman who treats him like an adult and play otherwise forbidden video games. Paradise must be like this. In fact, Mrs. Sherman's apartment becomes their own little Garden of Eden, right down to Mrs. Sherman becoming Eve. Ever so slowly, Eve lures him ever closer to tasting the forbidden fruit. First she offers him sips of wine and then she teaches him how to kiss. And then...then she gives Josh the whole apple, and nothing is ever going to be the same for him again.

Lyga deftly shows how this relationship affects every aspect of Josh's life. It affects his parents' marriage, his friendship with Zik (his best friend), and makes it absolutely impossible for him to have a normal relationship with girls his own age. But Lyga goes deeper than even that. Josh knows what happened to him. But nothing about it is as cut and dried for him as it seems to be for everyone else. After all, that apple was delicious. If he enjoyed eating the fruit, if he wanted to eat it, should Eve be blamed for giving it to him? Adding that question to the mix adds an even deeper layer to this book.

The only thing I'll quote from this book is a passage on forgiveness, because I thought it would be interesting to compare it to the forgiveness quote from Deb Caletti's The Fortune of Indigo Skye:

See, forgiveness doesn't happen all at once. It's not an event -- it's a process. Forgiveness happens while you're asleep, while you're dreaming, while you're inline at the coffee shop, while you're showering, eating, farting, jerking off. It happens in the back of your mind, and then one day you realize that you don't hate the person anymore, that your anger has gone away somewhere. And you understand. You've forgiven them. You don't know how or why. It sneaked up on you. It happened in the small spaces between thoughts and in the seconds between ideas and blinks. That's where forgiveness happens. Because anger and hatred, when left unfed, bleed away like air from a punctured tire, over time and days and years. Forgiveness is stealth. At least, that's what I hope.

Insist on Yourself

The Fortunes of Indigo Skye by Deb Caletti
4Q 4P J/S

When I first started reading about Indigo Skye, she made me think of Joan Bauer's Hope in Hope Was Here and Jenna in Rules of the Road. All three characters share a joy in their jobs and a deep sense of satisfaction in knowing they do the job well. Indigo and Hope are both waitresses. Indigo doesn't understand why people think it's okay to work as a waitress but not to be a waitress. She loves waitressing so much that she would happily make it her lifelong career, much to her mother's consternation. As far as Indigo is concerned, waitressing is about giving nourishment and creating relationships, not just about bringing the ketchup. As a result, Indigo is quite invested in the lives of the regulars at Carrera's, and they are equally invested in hers. It's a tragedy when Trina has to sell her car. When she finds Leroy by the side of the road dressed in an outlandish costume, she wants to know why. They all burn when Nick is taunted by coworkers who think it's funny to call him Killer. In short, they care for each other at Carrera's.

Maybe that's why the Vespa guy intrigues them so much. It's immediately clear that he's not the type they usually get at the diner. It's not just that the clothes he wears mark him as someone far too well-off to frequent a diner. It's the way he comes in and orders "just coffee" and then sits alone at a table staring out the window. He does this day after day, refusing to be drawn into the easy camaraderie the rest of them share. Though they're dying to know his story, Indigo and the regulars respect his obvious wish to be left alone. That is, they do until Indigo spots the cigarettes on his table and reams into him for being a smoker and ruining his health and the health of those around him. In most cases, Indigo's little tirade would cause the customer to demand to see the manager. It might even have cost her her job. But Indigo doesn't lose her job. Instead, she becomes 2.5 million dollars richer practically overnight.

Indigo has been very happy with her life up to this point. She loves her mother, sister, and her twin brother. She has a boyfriend she's crazy about and who is crazy about her in return. The fact that none of them has any money to speak of has never been a significant problem. But $2 million will change anyone's life, and not always for the better. Before she knows it, her job is in jeopardy, she's barely speaking to her boyfriend, and she doesn't know who she is anymore.

Musings:

I love Deb Caletti's writing. It's not just that she creates interesting three-dimensional characters I enjoy reading about and think I'd like to know or that she puts them in interesting situations (some of which I can relate to better than others). I like her writing. She knows how to turn a phrase. I find sentence after sentence that are evocative, telling, and immensely satisfying. She has the ability to make you laugh and think in the same sentence. That could be said about this whole book, though it's a book with humor, not necessarily a humorous book. Mostly, it's a book about caring about people and about discovering and staying true to what's important to you.

Quotes:

You can tell a lot about people from what they order for breakfast. Take Nick Harrison, for example. People talk about him killing his wife after she fell down a flight of stairs two years ago, but I know it's not true. Someone who killed his wife would order fried eggs, bacon, sausage -- something strong and meaty. I've never served anyone who's killed his wife for sure, so I don't know this for a fact, but I can tell you they wouldn't order oatmeal with raisins like Nick Harrison does...I once heard someone say you can destroy a man with a suspicious glance, and I'm sure they're right. Nick Harrison was cleared of any charges, and still he's destroyed. Oatmeal with raisins every day means you've lost hope. (p. 1)

People like to have something to turn down, though. They want to be able to say no to some things, because it makes their yes more meaningful. Even if that's just scrambled instead of poached or fried, wheat and not sourdough or rye. And "no" -- it's also a handy, accessible mini-capsule of power. Maybe you can't destroy your asshole boyfriend, but you can at least reject apple crumble pie. (p. 25)

What I am is happy. And maybe that's the closest definition for the word we can get, a life equation: an absence of wanting equals happiness. (p. 44)

Her room is a technological amusement park -- TV, DVD, computer, stereo, video games. Apparently, this way you could watch anything you wanted all by yourself in your own room, nudging yourself at the funny parts and telling yourself to be quiet because you couldn't hear when you were talking. (p. 55)

In my opinion? It's fine to have a reasonable amount of self-doubt. Maybe it's even necessary to avoid being an obnoxious human being. Cavemen did not do affirmations. Pilgrims fighting disease and freezing temperatures did not focus on eliminating the negative self-talk. The dusty and disheveled folks trudging on the Oregon Trail made it without one-year and five-year goals tacked to the insides of their covered wagons. I don't think they even had self-esteem in those days. (pp. 55-56)

The willingness to embrace the idea of "a surprise" is dependent on our past surprises being good ones. Maybe this is obvious, but I don't think so. Pessimism and caution and cynicism and the inability to be spontaneous are character flaws to those who've had good fortune, and common sense to those who haven't. (P. 111)

I guess forgiveness, like happiness, isn't a final destination. You don't one day end up there and get to stay...It's in and out, like the surf...Sometimes forgiveness is so far away you can barely imagine its possibility, and other times, surprising times...it is a sudden, unexpected visitor who stays briefly before moving on. (p. 138)

We are swayed too much, (Emerson) said, by the wrong things, by what each other has, not what each other is. We must be nonconformists, he wrote. We must think for ourselves, because the only sacred thing is the integrity of our own minds. Insist on yourself, he said. (p. 276)

Right Behind You by Gail Giles - booktalk

Right Behind You by Gail Giles
5Q 4P J/S

I stared at Billy as he stood there waving his baseball glove in my face, telling me it was a birthday present from his mother. I stared at the happy grin on his face, listened as he taunted me with "You don't even have a mom to give you one." In the background, I could hear my dad and Aunt Jenna arguing. I knew they were arguing about me and who I should live with and where. And suddenly I got madder than I've ever been. It was so unfair. Billy had everything I wanted. A glove. A grin. A mom. I didn't have any of it. But I did have the bucket of gasoline Dad had been making me fill all morning. I still had the cigarette lighter in my pocket. I could take at least one of those things away from him. I grabbed the bucket and sloshed the gasoline all over Billy's glove. It splashed on his arms and shirt and dribbled down his pants, too. Some even spattered up on his face. I don't think Billy even knew what I threw on him. He just called me a bad name and cradled his glove against his chest. By then I had the lighter out. I flicked the wheel and watched the blue spurt of flame spring up. I pitched it at the birthday baseball glove. It was covered in flames in seconds. So was Billy. His screams made my dad come running, but I was frozen in place. By the time Dad reached him and started beating out the flames, by the time Aunt Jenna had called 911, it was too late.

I was nine years old. And I'd just killed a boy.

How do I live with that?

Someday This Book Will Be (Fill in the Blank) to You

Someday This Pain Will be Useful to You by Peter Cameron
4Q 3P S

Lots of librarians, reviewers, and bloggers are falling in love with this book. I confess that I remain at the same distance from it that its main character, James, stays from every other person in his life except for his grandmother. And that's at a pretty significant distance. I just couldn't fall in love with it in the same way that so many others have. But I do acknowledge that it's well written and I think it may be very popular with some teens, particularly those who like books like Perks of Being a Wallflower and Rats Saw God.

Are You Listening, God? It's me, Kiriel.

Repossessed by A.M. Jenkins
5Q 3P J*/S (Technically, VOYA's J is grades 7-9. I think this one will be more popular with high school students.)


Kiriel is a fallen angel who has decided to take a vacation from his job (reflecting regret and guilt). Just as Shaun is about to be hit by a car, Kiriel steps into his body. Shaun's soul leaves, but his body lives on, with Kiriel animating it. Kiriel wants to experience what living is all about, and for those who like this kind of thing, it's quite fascinating to watch him get so caught up in and thrilled by the tiny details of life that we don't even notice (wind on your face, what it feels like to touch and smell even the most mundane things, like a dirty t-shirt). Ultimately, he decides there are three things he wants to accomplish: help Jason, Shaun's younger brother, to find at least a little happiness (Jason is a very angry and unhappy boy); convince at least one human being to stop the kind of behavior that will find him in Hell later as one of Kiriel's charges; and to have sex. How he goes about these things and what he learns about himself is the plot of this deceptively quick read. But it is also takes on what our role is in the world and whether God knows and cares that we exist. Yes, even fallen angels wonder about these things. I guess that gives us something in common.

I said I wasn't going to quote, but I am, briefly, because these few quotes really hit me:

This is one I should be taking to heart right now.

There was a white scar on his forehead that he'd received from falling off a swing when he was a child. I'd never heard him say why he chose to wear his hair on his face, but I wondered if he was trying to hide the scar. I rather liked it. How wonderful, to bear evidence of an event that must have been packed with emotion! How satisfying, to always have a physical token of something you'd experienced.

If you don't like passages like this, this might not be the book for you:

After I finished the shower, I filled the tub and took a bath. I filled it as high as it would go. I liked this water; I liked the feeling of it. It was warm and floaty. I slapped the surface to make little waves that disappeared quickly, and then I slid Shaun's whole body back and forth to make big waves that slopped over the side of the tub. When the water got cold, I filled the tub again, with even hotter water that turned Shaun's skin red. I watched his fingers and toes prune up. I lay back so his ears were under the surface, and I listened to his skin squeak as I rubbed his legs and bottom along the porcelain. Then I knocked on the side of the tub and listened to the echoing clunk. Cool.

It's always good to be reminded that everyone, whether its ourselves or someone else, matters and is somehow connected to someone else. I also like this because of what it means to Kiriel.

I had assumed that a human was bound by its activities and habits, its way of acting and speaking. But now it seemed that there were other threads that wound around someone like Shaun, connecting him to other beings - threads of affection and trust. Shaun was gone, but his place hadn't been quite empty. No matter how I tried to act as he would have, the threads he'd been associated with would always hold his shape. Well. It looked as though I had just learned something.

Even fallen angels have their doubts.

Shaun was lucky. He, at least, would be missed. Shaun Simmons had made a specific mark on the world, simply by being. A discontent rose in me. I thought, This must be Envy. It didn't feel particularly good or particularly bad. The only thing about it that seemed even slightly sinful was the way it clung and gnawed, as if it could easily take on a life of its own. Shaun's pillow cradled my head. I'd stolen a boy's body and the Creator didn't even care! If mankind was of such great import in the overall scheme of things, shouldn't He Himself have shown up to take care of that? But he hadn't. He hadn't even sent anybody. It was as if nobody was running the universe...Maybe the reason that no one cares about my absence, I thought, is that I don't have to be there..."

Passages like the last one make me think this would be a great book discussion group choice. This is a 2008 Printz Honor Book, and I like the choice.

The Real Deal on Faking Zen

Zen and the Art of Faking It by Jordan Sonnenblick
4Q 4P M/J

What is the sound a librarian makes when she loved one book by an author (Drums, Girls, and Dangerous Pie) and had a decidedly mixed reaction to his second (Notes From a Midnight Driver) after she finishes his latest? In this case, it's a sigh of relief. For more than one reason, I'm happy to say that I enjoyed this one almost as much as DGDP.

San Lee has a lot to contend with when he moves to his latest new town and enrolls in his latest new school. There's the Asian-kid-adopted-by-Caucasians thing. There's the my-father-is-in-prison-and-I-hate-him-thing. There's the we-have-no-money thing. And as though all of that wasn't enough, he's the new kid again. It stinks being the new kid. He has to suss out the kids and figure out who he should be this time. He's already been a skater dude, a Bible-thumper, a jock, and a preppy. But taking a look around his new homeroom makes him think none of those identities is going to work here. He's going to have to think this over. As it turns out, the decision is practically made for him. His social studies class is studying the ancient world, and they've just gotten to their unit on Buddhism. San's been there, done that, last year back in Texas. He even did a project on it. Without even thinking much about it, he tosses off a comment or two that make him seem pretty up on all things Zen. And since San is Asian, and since his mother can't afford to buy him clothes that are appropriate to winter in Pennsylvania, he winds up looking and sounding (at least to his classmates) like the real Zen Buddhist deal. Hmmm...that would be an interesting persona, wouldn't it? Especially since it looks like Woody, the guitar-playing beauty in his social studies class, really could go for a Zen kind of a guy.

Just like that, San has his new persona. Of course, there are a few moments of panic, since he doesn't really know as much as people think he does. (Fortunately, the local library has a good selection of books on Buddhism, though checking them out causes other types of problems). The Zen Buddhist thing really starts to work for San. It gets Woody's attention, for sure. They even wind up as partners on their social studies project. And somehow, the other kids start to believe he really is some sort of Zen Master. There's one kid, though, who isn't buying any of it. He's the kid who sits next to Woody in class. He seems to be around her pretty much everywhere they go, actually. And that's a bummer, because this kid is a whole heck of a lot bigger than San is, and a whole lot meaner, too. And it's clear that he's none too happy at the idea of San and Woody being together. The trouble is, Zen Buddhists don't do confrontations, so San can't really defend himself. He just has to sit back and take whatever this kid dishes out. He doesn't dare blow his cover and let people discover who he really is.

Because of course, San isn't any sort of Zen, let alone a Zen Master. And pretending to be a Zen is actually putting him in some awkward situations while not really helping with his other problems. It doesn't make being suddenly poor any easier. It certainly doesn't help him come to terms with what his father did and how he feels about it. No, lying about who he is isn't solving anything. And the fact of the matter is, the truth will always come out. And when it does, ommmm, my gosh, San is going to be in big, big trouble.

Musings:

Sonnenblick has a talent for taking what could be heavy subjects and leavening them with humor. While San's problems aren't quite on a par with coping with a little brother's cancer, he's still dealing with a pretty full plate. Questions about who you are and how to deal with a parent who deeply disappoints you are not problems one can easily shrug off. The laughs would be few and far between in most books for teens dealing with those subjects, but not in this one. Some YA books try so hard to be funny that it's almost painful to read them. (This may just be my sense of humor. I'm also not a fan of stupid-movie comedies, and slapstick makes me squirm.) Give me humor that comes from someplace real, please. And that's what Sonnenblick does.

A few quotes to give you an idea of San's voice:

Good thing I had probably won her heart by tumbling backward over my own chair at our first meeting. Chicks dig that kind of suave and manly display. Now all I had to do was talk to her, and she would most likely just melt into my muscled arms. My average arms. OK, my totally hairless, scrawny-chicken-looking arms.

From a moment in class when San is developing his Zen identity: I played it cool. "I guess you could say that." A mysterious and knowing half-smile played across my lips. Wow, I had a mysterious and knowing half smile!

The first time San purposely tries to project a Zen image is a little uncomfortable, given that he's sitting on a rock with his legs tucked up on each knee, it's mid-winter, and he's not exactly dressed for the weather. It crossed my mind that if the goal of sitting zazen was to forget about all conscious thought and just be, counting and purposely not counting were equally counterproductive. It also crossed my mind that the followers of Zen might not be enlightened; maybe they were just really, really sleepy. After a while I did manage to stop thinking about breathing by a clever trick: I concentrated on feeling all the individual molecules of my butt freezing solid, one by one. When my whole butt was completely numb - and I mean novocaine numb - I focused on the numbness. But numbness isn't the same as not thinking: it's just thinking about how you have no feeling in your tushy.

They smiled at each other for a moment, sharing some secret adult satisfaction of breaking in another generation to the yoke of book slavery.

On my rock the next morning, I achieved a moment of near-perfect insight. I mean, I know I was only fake meditating, but come on -- don't cubic zirconiums sparkle too?

Over the years, San has come up with a few rules for eating in school cafeterias. One of them is to stick to the pasta and fruit, since no school he's ever been to has ever known what to do with meat. This works really well when you're pretending to be a Zen Buddhist, who do no harm to living things (hence, no eating meat). Thing is, he hates vegetables. Hates them. Hates them. Cut to San and Woody volunteering at a soup kitchen together and being served dinner. Nice, juicy, charcoal-y hamburgers. San's mouth is watering and he's about to enter hamburger heaven when Woody reminds the nun serving them that San is a vegetarian. So he gets stuck with a veggie wrap:

Sadly, it was a fat wrap. There were the mandatory sprouts, which popped in my mouth and shot out foul, dirt-flavored liquid. There was the tortilla itself, which tasted like some horrible mutant offspring of carrot and spinach. There was something slippery and unspeakably spongy -- tofu? A fluffy mushroom? And the whole shebang was drenched in a ghastly ranch dressing that tasted like month-old mayonnaise would taste if you were licking it off a dead cat's mangy fur. With garlic...The next orning I could still taste the sprout-and-garlic horror...Do you know how hard it is to meditate when your mouth is a vegetable disaster area?

You can read more about Jordan Sonnenblick on his web site.

When Is a Joyride Not a Joy?

Okay...this was written in August and never posted, apparently. Since it's been two weeks since I posted anything other than a stop-gap post, I'm going to go ahead and publish this even though I must have wanted to edit it or add another thought. Since I have no idea what I had in mind, there's no point in waiting any longer.

TWOC: Taken Without Owner's Consent by Graham Joyce
4Q 3P S

Matt’s having a hellish time. He’s on probation and seeing a court-mandated counselor/probation officer. It’s not unusual for him to wake up screaming from horrible nightmares. And during the day, he’s haunted by the mocking image of his brother Josh, who died over a year ago. Matt taught Josh everything he ever needed to know about TWOCing – stealing cars to go joyriding. What Matt would like to forget, but can’t, is the horrible night he, Josh, and Josh’s girlfriend went on a terrible joyride that ended with Josh dead and Jools (the girlfriend) horribly disfigured. Only Matt walked away from the crash seemingly unscathed. But with those nightmares, strange memory lapses, and seeing Josh outside every window, Matt’s only unmarked on the outside. Inside, he’s a mess. Matt’s parole officer offers him the chance to participate in a weekend Outward Bound-type program that will, if he finishes it successfully, reduce his probation time. They'll be rock climbing, hiking, and (::sigh::) participating in group discussions "in a spirit of openness and honesty". Matt's not the outdoors type, and he's not convinced that this is anything he wants to do, but he's not really given that much of a choice. He has two companions on this trip. Gilb's a quiet kid with horrible acne ("even his zits have zits"), spiked, henna-dyed hair, and a vacant look ("he has a look about him, like someone removed the front part of his brain"). He's also a graffiti whiz, which Amy, the third companion, thinks is pretty cool. (They've both seen his work, and he's good.) Amy's a much bolder personality. Her hair is so short, you can see all the cuts on her scalp ("it looks as though she tried to cut her own hair with long-handled tree-pruning shears". Later she sports a multi-colored mohawk.) She's a fan of army-surplus clothes, and heavy goth-type makeup. She's also an in-your-face kind of girl who doesn't take any guff from anyone, least of all Matt. Amy's prone to setting fires where they don't belong. It probably won't surprise anyone to learn that this weekend trip is a big turning point in Matt's life. He learns a lot about himself over those two days, and some of it is stuff he'd really rather not have discovered. It also probably won't surprise anyone when Matt winds up bonding with Amy and Gilb. But Graham Joyce takes his readers on a heck of a ride (in more ways than one - this is, after all, a book about a kid who likes to go joyriding!) while Matt is on that journey of discovery. I'm pretty sure that even teens who don't really get into books will find themselves holding on for dear life when Matt, Amy, and Gilb break out of camp, steal a car, and take off on a joyride that starts out as a thrill and winds up in a place that gives Matt nightmares. This book is an interesting mix. It reads like realistic fiction, but the main character insists he is being haunted by the ghost of his dead brother. It has moments of action and suspense, but it also has many quieter scenes. Personally, I often found myself holding on to the edge of my seat (figuratively speaking) as I read, and I think I held my breath more than once. I also laughed far more than once. Matt, the main character, has a wicked sense of humor and he’s a very sarcastic observer. That makes for a fun read in between all the suspenseful and action-packed moments. But even with the humor and sarcasm, Graham Joyce never lets you forget that Matt is a very damaged kid who is dealing with a world of hurt. I cared about Matt, and he felt very real to me. Ultimately, I thought that Matt's problems and the book itself are resolved too neatly, and that the development of the relationship between Matt, Gilb, and Amy was a little too quick and neat. Because of those factors, this book hovers between a 3 and a 4 in quality for me, but I went with the four because the voice is so consistently strong and I found the storyline compelling. I wasn't sure where Matt's story was going, even though other aspects of the book were more predictable. British terms and slang are used throughout. That’s usually not a problem for me, but this time, I did get puzzled by a few terms. I wish I’d known that there was a glossary in the back. It would have helped. A couple of the terms I wasn’t familiar with turned out to be slang for part of the male anatomy. Others were sport-related terms that may or may not be specifically British. I was familiar with other terms from other books, but if you haven't read a lot of books written by British authors, you'll want to look at the glossary first.

Quotes:

A few lines from the book, chosen to give you an idea of Matt's voice:

(Sarah, Matt's probation officer/counselor, who is pretty hot:) "You seem so distracted, Matt. I wish you'd tell me what's going on in that head of yours."
Is she winding me up? If she can cross her legs like that and not know what's going on in the head of a sixteen-year-old boy, I don't think she's much of a probation officer.

A taste of Matt's day/nightmares. Jake has just handed Matt a bag, telling him he's too thin:

But I don't know about this bag. It has a bad weight. I open the bag, reach in, and pull out some of its contents. In my hand is a human ear, slightly ragged and bloody at its edge. And a toe. And a finger amputated at the second knuckle....I glance up from the bag and there is Jake outside the window laughing his head off, and in my hand are these body parts and I start screaming loud, louder. I start screaming and I don't stop even though no one downstairs can hear me because Slay Dog Dog are laying down some really heavy chords and screaming vocals themselves. But then the track reaches its end and I'm still screaming when my dad bursts into the room...."It's all right son, it's all right," he says, taking a bag of biscuits out of my hand.

Matt talks about learning how to break into and hotwire cars from his brother. At one point, he explains that they didn't always steal the cars. Half the fun was in seeing how fast they could break into a car. Sometimes, just for fun, they'd leave their business card for the owners:

"Your car was checked today by the NEIGHBOURHOOD WATCH SCHEME. It took only (blank) seconds to enter your car and poke around the glove compartment, where we found (blank - we would write things like "condom," "G-string,", etc. in this space). Please take greater care in the future and have a nice day. With the blanks neatly filled in, we would leave the car on the seat for the driver to find. We even did a police car once. You're dying to ask, aren't you? Thirty-nine seconds.

Matt's not too impressed with the conditions at the camp. The food in particular is less than inspiring. And this royal feast, this banquet for kings, is garnished with a sprinkling of green plastic-toy frogspawn, which on closer inspection proves to be tiny bullet-hard peas, boiled to death for God-knows-what crimes against humanity. And I'm not going to quote anything from this, but I'll tell you that the horse riding scene is one of my favorites in the book.


In the time since I wrote this, I can see that the 3P rating seems pretty accurate. But that's how it does just by sitting on my New Books shelf. I think it would sell pretty well in formal/informal booktalking situation (I may test that this week!).

Reading Roundup, Part Two

Both of these books are about two girls who are outcasts. Both are very much worth reading.

Story of a Girl by Sara Zarr
5Q 4P S

It's the summer before her junior year, but Deanna Lambert is still remembered for something that happened when she was in eighth grade, when her father caught her stoned and having sex in the back seat of Tommy Webber's Buick. Three years later, he still hasn't forgiven her, and he's still not really speaking to her. At school, everyone knows what happened, and all sorts of rumors (most of them spread by Tommy) have made the rounds. Most of the girls don't speak to her, and the boys mostly want her to put out for them, too. If that wasn't bad enough, Deanna's two best (only) friends have just started dating, and Deanna's having trouble with that. And ever since her brother Darren got Stacey pregnant and they moved into the basement with their infant daughter, things have gotten even worse at home Their father is making everyone miserable. She just wants out. Out of her house, out of her town, and out of her life. Deanna has a plan. She'll get a job, save her money, and put a down payment on an apartment for herself, Darren, Stacey, and April. What she doesn't count on is that the only place that will hire a girl with a reputation like hers is a crappy pizza joint. And what she really doesn't count on is that Tommy is working there, too. She never loved Tommy. She was never even sure that she liked him. But she knows that she hates him now. But it's not like she has a real choice here. She needs the job. She'll just have to ignore Tommy. Unfortunately, Tommy is not that easy to ignore, and unfinished business has a way of demanding to be finished.

This is a story about relationships. It's a story about friendship and love. It's a story about what it means to be a family. It's a story about moving on, forgiving those who have hurt you and forgiving yourself. It's the story of a girl and so much more.

A quote or two:

Hearing his name like that, her saying it with so much affection like maybe she actually loved him. I don't know, but I wanted to knock the pizza and root beer off the table and run out of Picasso's. It wasn't fair, Lee getting to think about losing her virginity with a nice guy like Jason, someone who spent his last two bucks on her favorite cookie, someone who didn't get her stoned so he could feel her up, someone who didn't drive her to deserted parking lots without at least taking her out to a movie first. Someone who made a declaration for her, and not just in the backseat of a car. I didn't want her to have that, not with Jason. I felt so third grade, like I wanted to push Lee to the ground and say I knew him first.

I imagined a time not too far off when she and I would be pulling up to a different house, a different door. It would be a place we'd look forward to going to. We wouldn't be able to keep from relaxing into the seats as we pointed the car toward home. In a place like that, I'd be able to reach across whatever it was that couldn't let me be the kind of friend Lee needed that night, or to be the kind of daughter my dad wanted. I'd reach across and grab the hand of that other Deanna and say come on, it's okay now. You're home.

It came down to the smallest things, really, that a person could do to say I'm sorry, to say it's okay, to say I forgive you. The tiniest of declarations that built, one on top of the other, until there was something solid beneath your feet. And then...and then. Who knew?

Freak by Marcella Pixley
4Q 4P M/J

Miriam (also known as Shakespeare) knows she's not your typical seventh grader, and that's quite all right with her. So what if she prefers reading poetry and the dictionary to going to parties? So what if she prefers wearing comfortable clothes instead of the latest fashions? So what if she isn't the prettiest girl in the class? She's comfortable in her own skin. What puzzles her is why other people care so much about any of those things. What puzzles her is why her older sister Deborah, who used to be her best friend, has completely remade herself so that she can be popular. Now that Deborah has turned herself from a plain Jane into a beauty, from a weirdo into an it-girl, she wants nothing to do with Miriam. Her parents are no help. Not only are they excessively self-involved, they think marching to a different drummer makes Miriam special and respected. Miriam doesn't have the heart to tell them anything different. So when life starts getting really rough, Miriam has nobody to turn to but Clyde. She can tell Clyde anything. Clyde is her journal, and it's where she pours out all her feelings. She tells Clyde about the way the popular girls, led by Jenny Clarke, tease her, call her names, throw things at her, even push her around. She also tells Clyde about her crush on Artie, the senior boy who is living with her family while his is out of the country. Artie is her soul mate. He shares his poetry with her. He plays chess with her. He always takes her seriously. He is also seriously hot. Having Artie living with them for a year is a beautiful dream. But the dream quickly turns into a nightmare. The girls in her class find out about her crush on Artie and tease her mercilessly. Even worse, it soon becomes apparent that Artie isn't interested in her; he's interested in Deborah. The feeling is mutual. Miriam is crushed when word gets back to her that even Artie is saying cruel things about her. It gets harder and harder to pretend that she doesn't care. Because the truth is, of course she cares. But when she tries to "get with the program", things just go from bad to worse.

Miriam is a well-rounded character. You can see why some people would find her annoying. She talks too much, she puts herself in the middle of conversations she doesn't belong in, and sometimes she's so obsessed with herself that she can't see what's right in front of her eyes. But I admired her decision to stay true to herself. When someone needs her, she doesn't run away. When something goes wrong, she fights back instead of giving up. If that's a freak, we need more freaks in this world.

One long quote:

The only place on earth I hate as much as the lockers at school is the school bus. The school bus is a physical map of who's cool and who isn't. No one tells you where to sit...But if you know who you are, you know where to go. Here's how it works: the more popular you are, the closer you sit to the back of the bus; the more of a loser you are, the closer you sit to the front...Kids at the back of the bus are beautiful. They find each other because being seen together makes them look even better. Kids at the front of the bus know they are defective. they have pimples or glasses or crooked teeth or greasy hair. They are embarrassed to be seen. The only thing more dangerous than being a loser with a group of beautiful kids behind you is being part of a group of losers all corralled together, like pathetic lambs waiting to be slaughtered. And here's the worst part. We hate each other. We hate each other even more than the popular kids hate us. We hate each other because when we look at each other, we can see what they are laughing at.

Bible Grrrl says Jesus and Darwin Agree

Evolution, Me, & Other Freaks of Nature by Robin Brande
4Q 3P J/S


"...I hoped my first day of school -- of high school, thank you, which I've only been looking forward to my entire life -- might turn out to be at least slightly better than eating live bugs. But I guess I was wrong."

So says Mena Reece, who might have had the first day of high school she'd been dreaming of if she only hadn't written that letter. If she hadn't written that letter, then her friends might be talking to her now. If she hadn't written that letter, her parents would be speaking to her. Her parents would look at her. But she did write that letter, and now she's been kicked out of her church, her parents are being sued, and she's being harassed at school. Mena and her family belong to a strict fundamentalist church. They believe that the Bible is the literal word of God, that homosexuality is a sin, and that anything that involves magic and wizards is of the devil. None of this is negotiable. If you stray from the church’s teachings or question the pastor, you are asking for trouble. Mena “asked” for trouble when she wrote that letter. Is she sorry she wrote it? Not really. It was the right thing to do. But that doesn’t mean she’s happy with the result. She never imagines her salvation will come at the hands of an evolution-teaching biology teacher and a science-loving lab partner.

Biology is not Mena's thing, but her lab partner is Casey Connor, who sweeps her along in his enthusiasm for science and admiration for Ms. Shepherd, a dynamic teacher who teaches her students how to think and observe. Mena can’t help but get interested. Each year, Ms. Shepherd gives her students the opportunity to earn extra credit by creating their own special project. Casey is determined to do the best project Ms. Shepherd has ever seen. Unfortunately, his idea requires going to his house after school almost every day. Mena knows that that just won’t fly with her parents (#1, she’s grounded; #2, she’s not allowed to be alone with a boy for any reason), but she goes anyway. She’ll figure out how to do deal with her parents later. In the meantime, she's trying to deny the obvious: Casey's a pretty cool guy. In fact, Casey's whole family is pretty cool, and very different from her own.

Casey’s sister Kayla is just about everything that Mena is not: excitable, strong, loud, and opinionated. While Mena wishes she'd never called attention to herself, Kayla relishes making waves. As editor of the school paper, she’s about to make a big one: Pastor Wells and his church’s youth group are protesting the teaching of evolution in Ms. Shepherd’s biology class. He wants creationism taught instead. It’s their own Scopes Monkey Trial, and Kayla is thrilled that Mena and Casey are right in the middle of it. They can be her sources on the scene while she blows this story wide open. Casey, Kayla, and Ms. Shepherd know exactly how they feel about evolution vs creationism. But Mena is torn. Ms. Shepherd is a brilliant scientist, and her lectures are very convincing. Still, Mena’s not used to questioning her church’s teachings. And the last thing she needs to do is get everyone in the congregation and her parents even angrier with her than they are now, if that’s even possible. No, she’s not going to take a stand on this one. But Kayla has other plans for her, and almost before she knows what’s happened, Mena has a piece in the school newspaper and her own blog. She’s Bible Grrrl, and what she has to say about the Bible and evolution gets her more attention than she ever dreamed of. Suddenly, people want to know what she has to say.

Just by being who they are, the Connors and Ms. Shepherd make Mena think about things in a new way and question things she's always accepted without much thought. Will having a boy friend (not even a boyfriend!) really inevitably lead to having sex? Can you really be corrupted just by reading a book or watching a movie? How do faith and facts interact? Can you believe in evolution and still believe in God? Can you disagree with your parents and still have them love and respect you and love and respect them in return? Is it wrong to stand up for the things you believe in, even when your stand isn’t a popular one? Is it time she thought for herself?

Musings:

If I were creating a Best Books List of 2007, this book would be on it. I like books that make me care and make me think. This one did that. I think Brande did a fine job making Mena a well-rounded character. She's not a perfect girl, and she doesn't pretend that she is. Watching her grow and figure out what she believes is as empowering to the reader as it is for Mena to actually do. It's also fun to watch her struggle with admitting that she's not as impervious to Casey's charms as she'd like to think, and I could empathize with her having a hard time believing that he might actually feel the same way about her. Casey and Kayla are great characters, and if Josh's t-shirts ever go on sale for real, I'm there. I do think that Brande does make Pastor Wells too one-dimensional and stereotypical, but on the other hand, his daughter is portrayed as equally sincere in her beliefs, but far more nuanced as a character.

This book has a lot going for it. I suspect that firm creationists won't be happy/satisfied with it, but those wondering how or if faith and science can coexist are likely to find that this book provides them food for thought.

I'm not going to quote anything because

• I have lost page one of my notes. This proves that 1) sticky notes aren't always the best things to use and 2) reading in bed is not conducive to good organization.
  
• Page two of my notes is full of things that are too close to the end of the book to quote.

• It's already taken me three weeks to get this post up, and it's high time I stopped agonizing and posted it already. Yeah, I know. It doesn't read like something that took three weeks to write (okay, not twenty-one days of writing, but definitely more than one session of "why won't the words I want come?!" frustration). But I tried.

I was going to point to the URL listed in the back of the book, but when I tried to visit it, I discovered that it doesn't really go to anything about Robin Brande specifically. Random House has turned it into a page to promote several authors. You also need a user name and password. Boo! hiss!

Edited on Jan. 11, 2008 to add Robin's web site, thanks to the comment below. This one actually does work! Check out Robin Brande's web site at http://www.robinbrande.com

Edited on August 30, 2008 to add a couple of missing words. I hope I caught them all, but no guarantees.

Life's a Cabaret, Old Chum!

Dramarama by E. Lockhart
3Q 4P J/S

I'm a drama geek through and through, so I knew I was going to enjoy this book. And I did. Anyone who is into theatre, especially musical theatre, will relate. (Alas, the part I can relate to all too well is the part about loving musical theatre but not being much of a singer!)

Sadye, formerly known as Sarah, is from a small town in Ohio as lacking in character as Cream of Wheat. ("In Brenton, Ohio, where I'm from, committing suicide would be redundant.") She's the only teen in town who cares anything about theater. The only way she can slake her love of the arts is by traveling twenty miles away four times a week to take a decent dance class. Nobody gets her. Until Demi.

Demi goes to Sarah's school, but neither of them realizes they have a mutual interest until Sarah sees an audition notice for Wildewood Academy of the Performing Arts Summer Theater Institute. She has only a week to prepare a song and learn a monolog. She can carry a tune, but truth to tell, she's not much of a singer. And she's never acted in her life. But she is a very good dancer, and she's counting on that to get her through.

The audition is pretty intimidating. Everyone is so GOOD! They can do it all - sing, dance, and act. Even though they Sarah doesn't really know Demi, at least he's a familiar face. Before they know it, the two have bonded, and Demi has even given Sarah a new name to match her new haircut: Sadye. He gives her encouragement, too, and some advice on how to approach her audition. Much to her delight, she actually gets accepted to the Institute. There was no question that Demi was going to be accepted. Not only can he act, sing, and dance, he's seriously good looking. He's a star waiting to be discovered.

And therein lies the problem. What happens when your best friend becomes a star and you have to settle for being a bit player? What happens when you realize you aren't as talented as you want to be?

This being a summer camp full of teens, you know that love is going to be involved, too. Demi is hog heaven, thrilled with being able to be himself, not having to act the straight guy so he doesn't get beaten up. But is he falling in love with the right guy? For that matter, is Sadye? Do any of the guys she has her eye on have his eye on her?

This is a book that I'd have been thrilled to read as a teen, when I prowled the shelves looking for books about acting. Finally, there's a book that deals with the work that goes into putting a show together, something that really focuses on teens honing their talents. But I got a little frustrated with Sadye at times. She knows she's not a good singer, but she really wants to be a performer. So why doesn't she even try to find a way to learn to sing better? So when she's depressed about not doing well with her singing, I can't say I felt all that sorry for her. On the other hand, Sadye gets into a lot of trouble for saying too much in some of her classes, and I did feel sorry for her then, because what she says appears to make sense. I kept yelling her in my head through the last half of my book, so I was quite happy to discover by the end that she'd heard me. ;) I won't say anything more than that!

Overall, I'd say this book veers towards the over-the-top, but doesn't ever really go too far. If you enjoy quick, light reads with a nice blend of romance, humor, suck-it-up-truth, and theater, theater, theater, you can't go wrong with this one.

Billie Standish (the book and the girl) Needs Some Love

Billie Standish Was Here by Nancy Crocker
5Q 3P J/S (mature subject matter, including a rape, makes this a book for older/mature readers)


This is an absolutely beautifully written book that I suspect will not get the attention it deserves. At this point, it's on my shortlist of the best YA books of the year. I would not hesitate to recommend it to adult readers as well as teens. However, it's a book that will be best appreciated by readers who enjoy characterization and setting, rather than those who prefer fast-moving action. I don't think what I say here truly spoils the book. It all happens in the first fifty or so pages. The book is about the journey, not the individual stops made along the way. But you may disagree, so please be forewarned that this review reveals two major events. If you prefer to read something that is more circumspect, check this review/interview from Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast. (This review, from Big A, little a, is the one that got me interested in reading the book. But be aware that this review also gives away those two plot points.)


Billie Standish knows exactly where she stands in her parents' lives. It's pretty clear when your name is William Marie Standish that a girl wasn't what they hoping for. The fact that they rarely talk to her and leave her alone for hours at a time just reinforces their lack of interest. But the morning that eleven-year-old Billie wakes up to find the town deserted really hammers it home. It's not until the old lady who lives across the street tells her that the levee is expected to break and flood the town that she has any idea of the danger she's in. Miss Lydia explains that the only people left are Billie and her parents and Miss Lydia and her son. And her parents never gave her even as much as a warning of what to do if trouble came. Miss Lydia takes pity on Billie and invites her to come to lunch. As Billie says, she'd rather have gone to church in shoes two sizes too small. She's no good at chitchat in the first place, but having to make conversation with someone who could remember when God was a boy? Oh, no.

But Miss Lydia insists, and Billie gives in. It's not long before Billie is over at Miss Lydia's most of every day, doing chores for her and in exchange learning about cooking and crochet and the old days of Miss Lydia's youth. She basks in the feeling of being welcomed and liked. As the weeks pass, Billie realizes she's made her first friend.

The one fly in the ointment is Miss Lydia's son, Curtis. Curtis gives Billie the creeps. She doesn't like the way he treats his mother and she doesn't like the way he looks at her. She knows Curtis's reputation, and she knows that he once killed a girl in a drunk driving accident. But she doesn't know just how bad he can be until the day he brutally rapes her. One horror follows another when Miss Lydia discovers what has happened and takes the law into her own hands. She has seen her son destroy one girl's life. She's damned if she's going to allow him to destroy another.

It is 1968, and rape is a shameful secret that is never discussed. And, of course, neither of them can ever tell what Miss Lydia did. As close as they had been, their secrets draw them even closer together. It is Miss Lydia who helps her deal with the aftermath, sharing her own equally traumatic experiences and assuring her that in time, she will be able to trust, and even love, again. The only person she can bear to be near is Miss Lydia. But when fifth grade starts in the fall, Billie has to go. School has never been her favorite place. The teachers are bad, the girls are clique-y, and she has always been the odd person out. But here, too, Billie finds an unexpected friend. Harlan knows as soon as she enters the room that something bad happened to her over the summer, though he never asks what. He is just there for her in his own quiet way. And soon the twosome becomes a threesome.

Billie Standish Was Here covers years in Billie's life. It is not a book about rape. It is a book about forgiveness and understanding, but most of all, it is a book about the healing power of love and the saving power of friendship. This is a book to be savored and reread often.

Musings:

I loved this book for many reasons, but I fell in love with its voice and humor. Here are some quotes chosen because they tell as much about Billie as they do about the person she's describing:

For a long time I was mostly invisible. That was okay, though. Once you've figured out you can't do anything right it's just good sense not to call undue notice your way. Why step out of the shadows and get yelled at for blocking somebody's light?

Nothing much bigger than a silent fart can get past the neighbors in a town this size, though, so I suppose I was looked after in a way.

About her mother:

I could see her with my eyes closed, slicing the air with her hip bones and elbows as she crossed me off the list in her head and moved on. Another chore taken care of.

Describing Curtis:

...his manners were neat almost to the point of finicky. Outside of TV, I had never seen anyone raise their pinky as they lifted their glass and I never could have imagined it with a dirty fingernail...For some reason, I remembered the wolf in "Little Red Riding Hood," who put on clothes and talked and was a good enough imitator to pass for a human being.

Describing her teacher:

There just doesn't seem to be enough of a person there to account for half of a couple.

Discovering love:

I don't believe in love at first sight. It might make for an easy shortcut if somebody's writing a movie, but in real life I think it's nothing more than hormones performing a parlor trick. I have come to believe that real love is like learning to read, one letter at a time, sounding things out until it all comes together. It takes time to build, step after step. And I know that was the exact moment Harlan climbed up that first step for me.

About Miss Lydia:

She left me knowing who I am without looking into anyone's mirror.

Printz Committee, are you listening?

Hooray for the Cybils Awards, which selected Billie Standish as one of the finalists in the YA Fiction category.

I have also posted a booktalk for this book. If you like it and use it, I'd love to know how it went over with your group.

(This post was edited slightly on 5/1/08 to reflect the Cybil Award nomination.)

Boy? Girl? Other? Neither?

Parrotfish by Ellen Wittlinger
4Q 3P J/S

A few years ago, the acronym GLBTQ started showing up all over the place. Suddenly, we weren't just talking about sexuality in terms of straight, gay, or lesbian. Now bisexual and transgender were added to the mix (along with queer/questioning, depending on who you asked about the acronym). I understood what bisexual meant, but what did it mean to be transgendered? If it's confusing for me, how much more confusing is it for teens? I read articles explaining it, and those helped, but I didn't really get it until I read Luna by Julie Ann Peters. And now I can add Ellen Wittlinger's Parrotfish to a very short list of books about being transgendered. Books like these peel the label away to show you the person underneath, and that's incredibly important and valuable. But Parrotfish isn't just an issue book. It's also just a darned good read, which isn't surprising, given its author.

After I wrote that paragraph, I wondered if I should be using the word "issue" at all. Is sexuality an issue? Should it be? As far as Grady is concerned, it shouldn't be. But Grady was born Angela and lived the first fifteen years of his life as a girl, and so he knows that yes, sexuality is an issue for a lot of people. But it bugs him. Why is whether you're a boy or girl so darned important? Why does it have to be a simple answer? One or the other? Not everyone fits so neatly into the category we get saddled with on Day One. Angela always knew she was different somehow. When her teachers told the class to line up in a boys line and a girls line, the other kids never seemed to have any question which line they belonged in. Angela knew she was supposed to go in the girl's line, but inside she knew she belonged with the boys. She also knew she'd get in trouble if she stood there. So for years, Grady allowed people to think of him as a girl. But now he's in his junior year of high school and he's tired of pretending to be someone he's not. Last year he let people think he was just a butch lesbian, or maybe just a freak. But that was pretending, too. He's not a girl, even if that's what his body tells the world he is. He's a guy. He's not Angela, he's Grady. And the world is just going to have to accept that.

Of course, it's not that easy. The reactions are varied, even in his own family. His father is surprisingly okay with it. His little brother is confused, but accepting. His sister Laura is angry. She's afraid that Grady is ruining any chance she has at being popular. And Grady's mother is just plain freaked out by it. She's not angry or rejecting, she's just...avoiding. She can't even look him in the eye or call him by name. When she finally does say Grady instead of Angela, it's a big moment for both of them. And it's not just his family Grady has to deal with. He also has to go to school and face the music there. Grady's best friend, Eve, is even more concerned than Laura about being seen with Grady: "Angie, this is too confusing. I'm not like you. I need to have friends -- I don't want people to think I'm a weirdo...Angela was my friend, but I don't know who Grady is! I'm sorry, but I can't call you that in front of other people. I can't be a part of this whole thing. it's just too bizarre." With friends like that, who needs enemies?

But if old friends and family sometimes let Grady down, he also discovers new friends where he least expects them. He would never have predicted that Russ, one of the most popular boys in school, and his (gorgeous) girlfriend Kita would turn out to be his strongest allies, or that Sebastian, the nerdy guy from her TV Production class, would become her new best friend. Sebastian's reaction to learning that Angela is now a boy named Grady? "Wow! You're just like the stoplight parrotfish!" In the world of stoplight parrotfish, it seems, changing gender from female to male isn't at all unusual, and Sebastian can't see why it should be any different among humans. He's happy to take Grady as he is, whoever that is. It won't surprise anyone to learn that Sebastian is unusual in that regard. Most of the other students think Grady's a freak and treat him accordingly. His high school principal and most of his teachers aren't supportive at all. But Sebastian, Russ, Kita, and Ms. Unger (the gym teacher) always have his back.

But gender identity isn't the only thing on Grady's mind. Like every teenager, he worries about family stuff and romance, too. For instance, he's desperate for a way to tell his father that the rest of the family has outgrown a family tradition he cherishes. This is going to take some delicate negotiating. But that's nothing compared to the tightrope he's walking with Russ and Kita. What do you do when you have the hots for a girl who's going out with your friend? When they're having trouble, do you root for them to work it out or do you root for them to break up so you can move in? And can you move in? Does Kita really see him as a guy, or would it totally freak her out to know that Grady desperately wants to kiss her?

These are things that everyone can relate to. And that's a hallmark of Ellen Wittlinger's writing: her ability to make her stories real and personal. No matter what the overall topic, be it a transgendered teen, a lonely boy who falls in love with a girl he can never be with (Hard Love), or a girl who made some poor choices for the sake of popularity (Sandpiper), the "issue" never overwhelms the story. When all is said and done, it is the characters you remember and care about. You will remember and care about Grady, too.

Musings:
Wittlinger breaks some stereotypes here. For once, the father is the family member who is the most accepting. That's not a typical scenario. And it's about time a gym teacher is not only not a Neanderthal, she's the teacher Grady can most rely on for help and understanding.

I have to admit that I wasn't a fan of Grady's made up conversations. I understand why they're there, and I think a lot of people do this (I know I do!), but they still felt a little jarring, maybe because the voice used in them seemed too different from the voice used in the rest of the book.

Quotes:
I realized it wasn't just that I became uninterested in girls when I hit puberty and started figuring out sex. I was a boy way before that, from the age of four or five, before I knew anything about sex. On one of the websites it said that gender identity - whether you feel like a boy or a girl - starts long before sexual identity - whether you're gay or straight. In my dreams at night, I was a boy, but every morning I woke to the big mistake. Everyone thought I was a girl because that's the way my body looked, and it was crystal clear to me that I was expected to pretend to *be* a girl whether I liked it or not. (pp. 18-19)

It occurred to me that the male members of my family seemed to be taking this better than the females, and I wondered why that was. Did the women feel like I was deserting them by deciding to live as the opposite sex? Maybe for Dad and Charlie, it didn't seem strange to want to be male, since that's what they were. But Mom and Laura -- and, of course, Eve -- acted like I was betraying them somehow. Would I have to give them up if I wasn't a girl anymore? I hoped not. I hoped that changing my gender wouldn't mean losing my entire past. (pp. 33-34.)

Does a hamlet fish carry around a skull and ponder suicide? (p. 71). Hee.

Sebastian and Grady have a conversation on pages 98-99 that struck me for several reasons, not least of which was that Sebastian helps Grady realize that he's not the only person who feels like a freak. It just his reason that's different. But it also struck me when Grady thinks, "...were there other people who thought I should off myself so their world wouldn't be spoiled by my presence?" Now there's a thought to make you shudder. Later, Grady thinks, "I couldn't imagine what it would be like to be so sure of yourself. To be scornful of anybody who wasn't just like you." Food for thought.


Other reviews on this book: Bookslut and Teen Reads

Cynthia Leitich Smith interviewed Ellen in 2005.

Ellen has an official web site, but it doesn't seem to have been updated with information about Parrotfish yet.


Edited to fix a couple of typos.