teenbookreview

• Rated 4 stars

“I love Meg Cabot. I really, really do. Not only do I wholeheartedly agree with the statement made in the title of this book, but I also love everything in between the covers. Heather Wells is one of my favorite Meg Cabot heroines (not that I don’t love them all), and I am so glad there are more books about her already out so there’s no agonizing wait.

Anyway, Heather Wells. She’s a former teen pop star who used to be stick thin and singing sickly sweet songs in malls across America and is now a size 12 (which is so not fat, no matter what anyone says) working at a college dorm–excuse me, residence hall–at New York College. Which seems to be the fake version of NYU, complete with pierced hipsters and a Washington Square Park location. Heather was recently dumped by her boy-band-member boyfriend, and moved into his brother’s house. Not actually with his brother–she has her own apartment, with its own set of locks and everything. She gets it rent-free for doing some work part-time for Cooper, who is a private investigator. Despite her former semi-star status, Heather can’t actually afford to pay rent because her mother took all her money and moved to Argentina. And as if Heather’s life isn’t crazy and complicated enough, did I mention she is totally head-over-heels in love with Cooper?

Heather’s had to deal with all sorts of things in her short stint at New York College, but nothing compares to what happens when a girl actually dies falling to the bottom of an elevator shaft. Her death is ruled accidental, and everyone seems to accept that, but Heather is certain of one thing: girls don’t elevator surf. This is murder. Even if everyone else seems to think she’s crazy, she’s determined to get to the bottom of this and make sure that no one else gets hurt.

Size 12 Is Not Fat is seriously addictive. It’s typically Meg Cabot in the most awesome ways–witty and smart and sometimes laugh-out-loud hilarious–as well as being a wonderful mystery. Meg Cabot is an amazing YA author, and even though this is an adult mystery, it will definitely appeal to her teen fans. It’s got that same awesomely funny narration, and a smart, real, relatable heroine who, despite being 28 and kind of famous, is at a transition point in her life, something that teens can definitely understand.

Reposted from http://teenbookreview.wordpress.com.”

teenbookreview wrote this review Monday, December 29 2008. ( reply | permalink )

• Rated 5 stars

“The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time is Mark Haddon’s rather brilliant novel from the perspective of a fifteen-year-old English boy who is incredibly clever when it comes to things like math and memorization, but clueless when it comes to things like human emotions and how to function in everyday life and society. It seems like he’s autistic, though Haddon never expressly says that in the novel. This book begins when Christopher decides to write a mystery novel based on the real-life mystery of “Who Killed Wellington?,” Wellington being his neighbor’s poodle who was horrifically murdered with a garden fork.
In the series of events that unfolds from there, Christopher is pushed unbelievably far out of his comfort zone, trying to solve Wellington’s murder, figure out a new mystery having to do with his mother, and just deal with the parts of everyday life that are so effortless for the rest of us.

Christopher’s voice rings true in this clever book. I am usually not a fan of required reading (I read this book and wrote this review for my Psych class), but I couldn’t put this book down once I started reading it. It’s smart and funny and observant. The narration is detached in just the way Christopher is supposed to be, perfect for the character—all cold and logical without any of the passion or emotion that regular people have. Christopher is overwhelmed and confused sometimes, but there are many things that would upset most people that leave Christopher completely unemotional. It’s a little bit alarming, the way he does not seem to understand other people as being human like him. The way the entire story is told just as Christopher would tell it. For example, the way he doesn’t care that his mother left his father, cheated on him. He doesn’t care about that, still sees his mother the same way she always has been, but when he finds out his father killed Wellington, a dog, he is horrified and terrified of his father, seeing him as something of a monster, something to fear. He identifies far better with animals, whose emotions are relatively uncomplicated, than with people. He actually compares the minds of other people to computers at one point. Mark Haddon has done a brilliant job with this book. He’s an amazingly gifted writer, with his perfect characterization of Christopher. I saw that he’s written another book, and I’m definitely going to read it as soon as possible.”

teenbookreview wrote this review Monday, December 29 2008. ( reply | permalink )

• Rated 5 stars

“In this beautifully crafted piece of historical fiction, fifteen-year-old Ruby is forced to quit school and work to support her family after her father’s death when her mother is no longer able to do so. She doesn’t have any skills that will help her (she never took typing or shorthand in school), so she takes a job at a meatpacking plant. It’s harsh work, but there are few options for a girl in Chicago in the early 1940s, and she doesn’t see a way out.

All that changes after Paulie Suelze, neighborhood legend and a boy her mother would die to see her with, is impressed with her dancing and directs her to the Starlight Dance Academy. There, Ruby can get paid for dancing all night, as long as her mother never finds out (her cover story is that she’s found work as a telephone operator). Despite what its name suggests, Starlight is a taxi dance hall, where girls like Ruby (taxi dancers) are paid ten cents a dance, and sometimes more for extracurricular activities with the men, which range from casual conversation over dinner to, well, you know.

Soon, Ruby is deep into the world of nighttime Chicago–the music, the clubs, the dancing, the drinking, the gambling–and having trouble reconciling who she’s forced to become with the innocent girl she used to be.

Ten Cents A Dance is gorgeous. The setting comes vividly to life, and I do mean vividly. I felt immersed in Ruby’s world, and 1940s Chicago is certainly a fascinating place to be. I do love a nice setting, and, wow, I honestly can’t think of a better book in terms of the very real sense of time and place and the culture and language that come with it (I loved the 1940s slang!). I can’t even describe how well Christine Fletcher pulled this off–for those words, you’ll need to read the book itself.

It’s not just the setting, though. The characters are very real, and their relationships rung true as well. Ruby is a wonderful heroine, and her character develops nicely over the course of the story. She comes out a different person at the end of it all, in some ways, as would anyone, but she’s still Ruby–just the way it should be. Very believable. Ruby is strong and spirited and I can’t imagine not loving her. Even the minor chracters were well-drawn, and I was quite intrigued by some of them (I’d love to look deeper into the life of Ozzie, who plays in the band at the Starlight, for example).

Ruby’s voice is authentic and a pleasure to read. Christine Fletcher is brilliant in her use of language, and she chose an excellent story to apply it to. I’d never heard of taxi dance halls before, but suffice to say I am plenty interested now and have been doing a bit of my own internet research on them and the culture of the time. I was completely hooked by this story, and not just the story, but also, almost independently, its setting.

Ruby’s visits to the black-and-tans (the clubs where all races are welcomed) also provide an interesting window into another aspect of this time and place. It’s certainly not any kind of an issue book, but I did enjoy the insight into the race relations of the time. I enjoyed all insights into the time and place, honestly. As much as all aspects of this book stand out, it’s the setting and Christine Fletcher’s vivid portrayal of it that really pushes it to over-the-top amazingly brilliant.

I adored the author’s previous book, Tallulah Falls, and expected this one to be amazing as well, and it was even better. They’re very different books, too, and I love Christine Fletcher’s versatility; I can’t wait to see what she writes in the future. She’s an incredibly talented author, and you will be far from sorry for picking up this book.”

teenbookreview wrote this review Monday, December 29 2008. ( reply | permalink )

• Rated 5 stars

“When the story starts, it’s been a hundred years since the Cubs won the World Series, and five years since Ryan’s father died in an accident. It’s opening day, and the anniversary of her father’s death, and Ryan’s at Wrigley Field instead of in science class. Her father loved the Cubs.

Ryan is unable to get a ticket, but she meets a boy in her math class who she’s never spoken to before, and the two of them, despite being unable to get into the game, soak up the atmosphere together. It’s one afternoon, but it’s one afternoon that will change everything for Ryan.

The Comeback Season is, yes, a book about baseball. The atmosphere of the Cubs games and Chicago is so wonderfully captured and real and alive; it made me want to move to Chicago and watch baseball. I don’t like baseball, and I’m hoping to move to New York next year. Although perhaps I should be taking the two awesome books I’ve read recently that make me love Chicago (where I’ve never been) as signs from the universe or something.

It didn’t take me long to be completely absorbed into this story, despite the odd choice of third person limited present-tense. It’s different, but it worked; it wasn’t long before I felt myself fall into the rhythm of it. It’s so present, which sounds weird for a book about a girl who is having trouble moving on to the future, but it most definitely works. And there is rhythm here, and style, and voice, and an eloquence that is just lovely and unique, much like the book itself.

Ryan is a complex, believable, and likeable main character. Her relationship with Nick is very real–after their initial connection, it ranges from comfortable to painfully awkward, just like any budding teenage relationship. The Cubs brought them together, and baseball is very much a theme that weaves this whole book together, and I love it. It’s a very orignal idea, to take what is otherwise kind of a girly romantic book and use baseball as the backdrop for it, but it works. It’s a very effective metaphorical mirror to what is going on in Ryan’s life.

Much like any Cubs game, The Comeback Season is both heartbreaking and hopeful. It’s a different sort of book, and it’s amazingly poignant, powerful, and, in the end, breathtaking. It’s both predictable and unexpected, simple and complex, about the past, the present, and the future. It’s courage and faith and disappointment and hope. It’s brilliant. I never expected to love a book about baseball, but I did, and I feel certain that Ryan’s comeback season will stick with me.”

teenbookreview wrote this review Monday, December 29 2008. ( reply | permalink )

1 of 1 members found this review helpful.

• Rated 5 stars

“I Know It’s Over is not an issue book. It may seem odd that I feel the need to preface my review with this, but teen pregnancy is pretty much the premise of this book, and that definitely makes it sound like a typical issue book, and it’s not. Yes, the charcters deal with the issue, but it’s not about the “issue,” or the cold generalizations that implies; it’s about the people. It’s about something that could really happen to almost anyone, and about two people who do have to handle this problem, and an unplanned pregnancy at sixteen is a huge problem.

Nick and Sasha are over by the time Sasha tells Nick, on Christmas Eve, that she’s pregnant. While it lasted, though, it was a good relationship, and Nick’s still holding on to what he and Sasha had. Now, that’s difficult and impossible as he tries to let Sasha make her own decisions, but still can’t help but be involved. That’s not the whole story, though; part of this book is also flashbacks to the beginning and duration of Nick and Sasha’s relationship.

This book isn’t just about Nick and his relationship with and feelings for Sasha, or how they deal with the pregnancy. It’s also about Nick’s whole life, including the issues he has with his friends and family.

C.K. Kelly Martin’s debut novel is a believable, readable, intense, and captivating story. It’s layered and complex and scarily relatable. To the reader, it feels like a story about real people, people who could be your friends or siblings or neighbors, not a book about an issue or a book with a lesson to teach, and that is truly impressive. The author does an amazing job with Nick, her protagonist, painting a vivid portrait of him and his life, and also capturing his voice perfectly–and it’s a feat, the way a grown woman is able to capture the voice of a sixteen-year-old boy! Martin’s writing style is honest and perfect for this story and character. I Know It’s Over is very, very good, and highly recommended. I can’t wait to read this author’s next book.”

teenbookreview wrote this review Monday, December 29 2008. ( reply | permalink )

• Rated 3 stars

“One Hundred Young Americans is a book of photography and interviews with, you guessed it, one hundred young Americans. These people come from all 50 states, and represent every facet of youth culture imaginable, from the usual ones like jock or redneck or skater, to the more out-there like vampire and white supremacist. The author traveled acros the country to meet these people and collect their stories, and it is certainly an interesting premise.

My take? If this book is as accurate as it claims to be, people are fucking CRAZY. I’m afraid of the state of the world, sad for the future, if this is accurate. Most of the people in this book are shallow or ignorant or bigoted or stupid or crazy or superficial or intolerant or some combination of those characteristics.

That’s not to say there aren’t a few people I’d like to know, but most of these people are crazy. However, I doubt its accuracy as a portrait of America’s youth. I feel like certain groups (skaters/racers/bikers of all kinds, for example) are overrepresented, while others (sane, rational, intelligent people) are underrepresented. Everyone has a story, even the bland-looking honors student. It’s not just the people who look the most interesting in the mall or at Burger King that have stories to tell, and I’m not sure the people doing the recruiting for this book got that. A lot of the choices seem more about shock value than representing the young people of this country in any way close to accurate.

However, that said, I loved the pictures. Portrait photography (not interviewing or writing) is this author’s calling. Still, unless you’re an aspiring portrait photographer, I’m not sure this is worth the almost $30 that is the sticker price (I got it off a clearance shelf at the local indie bookstore). It’s poorly written, poorly bound, poorly edited, and not what it makes itself out to be. Also, some of the facts have not been thoroughly checked. But it’s most definitely interesting, and I’d say it was worth the $12 I paid, even though there are major flaws. These people are fascinating characters.”

teenbookreview wrote this review Monday, December 29 2008. ( reply | permalink )

• Rated 4 stars

“Kat is not afraid of being herself. She’s an artist, an athlete, a receptionist at her mom Abra’s midwifery, and does yoga in the hallways at school to center herself. Kat’s not “original” in that cliche, unoriginal way; she’s just herself, and that’s a little different from most people. Sure, she might have self-esteem issues sometimes (don’t we all?), and she pays a little too much attention to the popular crowd at school, but she’s still Kat, and that’s why I love her.

Kat’s life is imperfect, just like anyone’s. She’s crushing on popular Manny Cruz (who seemed sleazy, but...wasn't? I didn't feel like his character made complete sense). She has some problems with her best friend, Christy. Her relationship with her mother isn’t great; Abra pays more attention to her clients than her children. Fact of Life #31 is about all aspects of Kat’s life (friends, school, guys, family–just life), but her relationship with her mother is the big one.

In Fact of Life #31, Denise Vega takes on a lot. A lot of characters, a lot of issues, a lot of stuff happening in Kat’s life, just like the crazy-hectic lives of most teenagers (not in content but in volume of stuff we have to deal with). And she does it really well. I absolutely loved Kat, and most of the other characters. This was a funny, honest, well-written book that I really enjoyed reading. Kat’s quirky without being a stereotype, and while she has the same issues as a lot of teenagers, she’s unique enough to make reading about it through her eyes interesting. This is a solidly good book. ”

teenbookreview wrote this review Monday, December 29 2008. ( reply | permalink )

• Rated 5 stars

“Leftovers chronicles the transformation of two best friends from kids to people who have done something. Something unforgivable, but, they believe, not for unforgivable reasons. We don’t know what when the book starts. All we know is that they are taking turns confessing on tape. They start with the backstory. They start with how they got to where they are, how they became people who could do what they did.

Blair’s mother is all about image. She doesn’t care about Blair, and when they do see each other, it’s mostly in the company of other people who need to believe that their family is close. Blair’s father is having an affair. They are not the family they once were.

Ardith’s family is what it’s always been. Ardith’s house is the party house, full of drinking and sex and all sorts of things that wouldn’t go on in a place with normal parents. Ardith keeps padlocks on her door to keep out what goes on in the rest of her house.

Blair and Ardith are best friends. They turn to each other when everyone else in their world fails them. The unfortunate circumstances and cruel people in their lives try to rip them apart, but their bond can’t be broken that easily; just changed, as they change, as does everything around them.

Leftovers is a very intense story. Horrible things happen to Blair and Ardith, and in the end, it’s simultaneously unsurprising and horrifying. Blair and Ardith are very real characters, and their story is disturbingly believable. Blair and Ardith are interesting to the reader, because, to me at least, they still managed to be sympathetic characters. They did something unforgivable, but they were also the victims in this story, in another way. As I read, I could not turn the pages fast enough (and thus have no idea what’s been going on in Chemistry for the past two days). It’s well-written, suspenseful, and kind of like watching two cars go toward each other, toward a head-on collision; you know something horrible is going to happen, but you can’t look away. The format of this novel is interesting, as Blair and Ardith alternate talking, sometimes talking in the present tense to the person they’re confessing to, and sometimes telling the story of what happened. Sometimes it’s in second person, too, which is an interesting effect with disastrous potential, but Laura Wiess pulls it off nicely. This is a powerful book that certainly lives up to the high standards set by Laura Wiess’s first novel, Such A Pretty Girl. ”

teenbookreview wrote this review Monday, December 29 2008. ( reply | permalink )

• Rated 5 stars

“Losers is a short, funny novel about a quirky Russian kid who can’t fit in with the rest of his high school. His best friend, Vadim, is a genius who should be even more of a social outcast than he is, but even he finds his niche before Jupiter does. Jupiter Glazer is lost, out of orbit.

He lives with his parents in a warehouse in Philadelphia, and it is not, he thinks, the most interesting place in the world. Then he discovers downtown. He discovers a whole new world outside of the warehouse and high school, a sophisticated world of coffee shops and those who frequen them. At school, too, he begins to be less invisible, at first as the school bully’s target, but then, suddenly, things aren’t the way they used to be.

It’s not really about the plot, though. Matthue Roth’s novel is about the character and the voice, and it rocks. It’s hilarious. It’s more than a little crazy, yet manages to ring true. There are universal life truths in here among Jupiter’s escapades, and you’ll find yourself rooting for Jupiter wholeheartedly. And the writing! Even funnier. Descriptive and gritty and captivating. Matthue Roth can write. I already loved his book Never Mind The Goldbergs, so I expected this to be awesome, and it was. It’s a coming of age story that also falls into the madcap adventure category occasionally, and the result is a lot of amusement minus brain rotting. This is a short novel that packs a lot of punch and will provoke a lot of muffled laughter. Highly recommended.”

teenbookreview wrote this review Monday, December 29 2008. ( reply | permalink )

0 of 1 members found this review helpful.

• Rated 4 stars

“Sixteen-year-old Erin Misrahe is diagnosed with schizophrenia and dissociative identity disorder (multiple personalities), and has spent most of her life institutionalized. Sometimes, she blacks out, can’t remember anything, and her violent other personality (referred to in this book as her alter ego), Shevaun, takes over. Now, she’s been symptom-free for eighteen months and she’s trying to become a part of normal society, living at home and transitioning gradually to a public school.

She thinks her life is headed for normalcy–until it gets weirder than ever. She wakes up looking through someone else’s eyes, and it’s all crazy from there. She reconnects with an old friend, finds out a secret about a new one, and discovers that there’s a lot more to the world than what meets the eye. Shevaun isn’t part of Erin; she’s centuries old vampire who exists separately from Erin, but they have a connection no one understands.

Persistence of Memory is yet another unsatisfying peek into Amelia Atwater-Rhodes‘ world. Why unsatistfying? Only for the best reasons–when you’re reading, you can feel that there’s a whole world behind these stories. The characters are people in it, and their roles in the stories that make it to publication are not their lives. I feel like Amelia Atwater-Rhodes knows their whole lives. She knows a lot more about this complete other world than makes it into her books. It’s pretty awesome, especially to know that there are so many other stories just waiting to be written or published! It’s frustrating, too, though, to see glimpses of fascinating places and people, but not to know the whole story. But, as I said, frustrating in a totally awesome way.

In this book, the different parts of this world come together in a way they don’t in the other books. Witches, vampires, shape-shifters–it’s all here. We see glimpses of characters from other books, as always, and I love it. Amelia’s world-building is fascinating. Her storytelling is wonderful and imaginative. Her writing is fluid. Her characters (for the most part) are real people. It’s captivating reading.

However, as much as I love this book (and all the others by this author), I do have some issues with its accuracy, mainly Erin’s mental health diagnosis. I know these aren’t issues that people not taking AP Psychology would have, but they bothered me. Erin, as far as I can tell, doesn’t actually show the signs of schizophrenia, just dissociative identity disorder, so I’m not sure why she was diagnosed with it–especially because she’s under 18. Children can’t be diagnosed with schizophrenia; according to DSM-IV, which is a diagnostic manual of mental illnesses, sufferers must be 18, and Erin was diagnosed as a small child.

My other problem with this book was Shevaun. I didn’t feel like we got to know Shevaun very well, or like her personality, from the glimpses we saw of it, made total sense. For example, it was mentioned that she didn’t kill unthinkingly, and she even felt guilt for some of her killing, but at other times, it seems like she was a cold-blooded, reckless killer. Shevaun didn’t make sense. Perhaps that’s just because of the limited viewpoint that the reader has, and I’m sure she makes sense to the author–but that didn’t translate 100% in the book. Amelia Atwater-Rhodes has said that she tends to overshare in her books before her editor steps in, but there needs to be a balance between oversharing and not revealing enough.

Overall, though, I really enjoyed Persistence of Memory. It was compelling and well-written and just fun to read as well. Addicting, even. Fans should not be disappointed.”

teenbookreview wrote this review Monday, December 29 2008. ( reply | permalink )