The Perks of Being A Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky

Genre: YA contemporary
Pages: 224 (paperback)
Published: 1999

Synopsis:  This is the story of what it's like to grow up in high school. More intimate than a diary, Charlie's letters are singular and unique, hilarious and devastating. We may not know where he lives. We may not know to whom he is writing. All we know is the world he shares. Caught between trying to live his life and trying to run from it puts him on a strange course through uncharted territory. The world of first dates and mixed tapes, family dramas and new friends. The world of sex, drugs, and The Rocky Horror Picture Show, when all one requires is that perfect song on that perfect drive to feel infinite.

Through Charlie, Stephen Chbosky has created a deeply affecting coming-of-age story, a powerful novel that will spirit you back to those wild and poignant roller coaster days known as growing up.

In a li'l bit of words: Sweetly poignant and told by an endearing and wonderful teenage narrator in a series of letters to a mysterious "friend", Wallflower is the best contemporary YA book I've read in a long time.

In a lotta words:  I confess that I always skipped over the skinny spine of The Perks of Being a Wallflower in my high school library.  I had some vague notion that it was considered an "edgy" book and had been on a lot of banned books lists, but honestly at the time I was more interested in reading about teenage wizards and dragon riders than mostly ordinary teenagers going to high school-- a setting which I mistakenly thought I'd had more than enough of in real life.  But the thing is, Charlie's life isn't ordinary at all-- it's "both happy and sad", filled with beautifully-realized and sometimes painfully-flawed characters who come to life on the pages of Charlie's letters.

Charlie as a narrator was what made this book special to me-- yes, I think I may have joined the legions of readers and re-readers who sing Wallflower's praises.  Charlie is an incredibly sweet, thoughtful, and intelligent 15-year old, and really just an altogether excellent human being.  He can be incredibly emotional: sad one moment and feeling free and "infinite" a few pages later.  Charlie relates the story of his life, and the lives of his friends and family who he's a confidante to, with a mixture of understanding insight and naive acceptance.  The way he signs all his letters with "Love always, Charlie" was so endearing.  I liked all the other characters-- Sam and Patrick, Charlie's sister, and even Mary Elizabeth (a bossy girl Charlie somehow ends up dating)--, but Charlie was the one I could have read another couple of books about.  His dilemma between knowing that he should probably try to "participate" in high school and in life and his instinctual urge to listen and sit back and observe rang really true with me, as I'm sure it does with a lot of introverts.

Contemporary YA novels often seem to have tired plots and character stereotypes-- ie the jock, the stoner, the goth girl.  There are a few of such types in Wallflower, but I'm not sure how much this reflects genre conventions and how much it reflects real life.  (Being an older, popular book, Wallflower might actually have inspired a lot of YA conventions.)  This was a book both comfortably (and sometimes sadly, as the teenagers go through really hard things like the suicide of a friend, an unwanted pregnancy, and emotional problems) familiar and refreshingly unique.  Charlie's way of storytelling through letters and his voice make Wallflower a compulsively readable and inevitably thought-provoking book.


My Rating:

Girl in Translation by Jean Kwok

Genre: contemporary
Pages: 293 (hardcover)
Published: 2011 by Penguin
Recommended for: anyone looking for captivating insight into the immigrant experience through the eyes of a girl you can cheer for


My Take:

UPDATE: I feel very out of practice when it comes to reviewing, so bear with me!  I hope more reviews will be on the way soon, but upcoming AP exams and college stuff are once again making my life crazy.  This review will be a "quickie", since I'm just now getting to the point where I feel like I have time to post about books I really enjoyed, rather than everything I read (which hasn't been too much recently, unless a review of 5 Steps to Getting a 5 on the AP European History Exam sounds thrilling to you).

Pre-teenage Hong Kong native Kimberly Chang arrives in New York City with limited command of the English language and a mix of anxiety and excitement stirring within her.  She and her mother are dismayed by the state of their new Brooklyn apartment (the conditions of which are truly horrible) and the long shifts they must work in a Chinatown sweatshop to skate by on very little money, but resolve to make do however they can.  Meanwhile, Kimberly finds herself both intrigued and somewhat repulsed (weren't we all?) by the world of American public school.  She was always one of the brightest students in her class back in Hong Kong, but here the rules of socialization and even math, the one constant in her life, are foreign to her.  Kimberly realizes that succeeding via her "talent for school" may be the only way she can ever get her mother out of their dinghy apartment and the sweatshop, though, and so she pushes herself to breaking point with dreams of getting into an exclusive private school and graduating at the top of her class.  Kimberly's Chinese values and her new-found American ones come to clash in realistic and heartrending ways as she grows older, as she is torn between two boys and two very different futures, yet the conclusion of this introspective novel is all the more satisfying because it is Kimberly alone who manages to rise above her circumstances and achieve her dreams, all the while never losing sight of her values and who she is.


In short, this coming-of-age type novel by debut author Jean Kwok really impressed me-- and it's especially cool that the experiences of Kimberly Chang strongly echo those of Kwok herself, whom, like Kimberly, emigrated from Hong Kong to New York at a young age to work in a sweatshop with her mother.  The synopsis of this semi-autobiographical book make it seem like something of a "downer", but it becomes quickly evident upon beginning Kim's story that her struggles will be matched with her triumphs, a strong supporting cast of characters, and a smidget of humor.  Girl in Translation is somewhere between the  categories of "deep" literature and chic-lit-esque contemporary fiction, but I was surprised to find it somewhat closer to the latter.  Kimberly was a narrator I could completely relate to-- not because I've ever relocated to a strange country and dealt with culture-clash in the ways that she did, but because her very Chinese perspectives on American culture and teenagers reminded me a lot of my own high school experiences.  As the daughter of a benevolent American tiger mom and an inherently overly serious, respectful person, I remember feeling like an honorary US immigrant during my freshman year of high school!  I definitely recommend Girl in Translation-- it's a quick, enthralling read by a smart, talented new author with fresh perspectives on the Chinese-American and immigrant experiences.

Premise: 5/5
Story/Plot: 4/5
Characters: 5/5
Overall Rating:

Shine by Lauren Myracle

Genre: YA contemporary
Pages: 350 (hardcover)
Published: May 2011 by Amulet Books
 Recommended for: everyone who doesn't mind sensitive topics-- highly recommended

My Take:

Shine is an unforgettable novel indeed.  The story unfolds in Black Creek, a clandestine and drug-ridden small town in the mountains of North Carolina-- very close to home for me.  Cat has slowly retreated from her community... even from her best friend since before she could walk-- Patrick.  Patrick who, like Cat, was determined to be a survivor of the hopeless void of their hometown.  Patrick who was found beaten and strung to a gas station pump with homophobic words of hate carved into his chest.

Now Patrick is in a coma, and doctors wonder if he will ever emerge from it the way he once was.  Cat returns from her long self-imposed exile to hunt down the perpetrator-- because though the local sheriff thinks out-of-towners are responsible for the vicious gay-hate crime, Cat doesn't believe it for a second.  She searches the ranks of her one-time friends, digging deep into the darkness of the crooked little town for clues as to who did this to Patrick and why.  What she finds I doubt anyone could predict ahead of time.

Though this book is a mystery, it's a subtle one.  Myracle masterfully focuses in on all the gritty secrets and details of Cat's town-- its more unsavory inhabitants as well as its more admirable ones-- and still she manages to show us the brightness shining through everything, even the horrible events which unfolded prior to the story's opening.  I'd never heard the quote at the beginning of the book before: 'You are the light of the world.'  But I think it fits the novel perfectly, as does the cover with its intriguing mixture of light and darkness.  This is one you will be likely be thinking of long after you turn the final page.  A highly atmospheric chiaroscuro of small and epic proportions alike, I highly recommend Shine.

Cover: 5/5

Premise: 4/5

Characters: 5/5

Plot: 5/5

Overall Rating: 5/5

The Liar Society by Laura & Lisa Roecker

Genre: YA contemp/ mystery
Pages: 361 (hardcover)
Published: Marcy 2011 by Sourcebooks
Recommended for: fans of YA mystery and Pretty Little Liars

Synopsis:
Kate Lowry didn't think dead best friends could send e-mails. But when she gets an e-mail from Grace, she’s not so sure. 

To: KateLowry@pemberlybrown.edu
Sent: Sun 9/14 11:59 PM
From: GraceLee@pemberlybrown.edu
Subject: (no subject)

Kate,
I'm here…
sort of.
Find Cameron.
He knows.
I shouldn't be writing.
Don't tell.
They'll hurt you.

Now Kate has no choice but to prove once and for all that Grace’s death was more than just a tragic accident. But secrets haunt the halls of her elite private school. Secrets people will do anything to protect. Even if it means getting rid of the girl trying to solve a murder...

My Take: 


Here's a fair warning: I really don't like mysteries.  I just don't, so this review is bound to be a little biased.  I'm the sort of person who can't stand surprises or clandestine whispers, and so it's hardly surprising that I find little enjoyment in books where our protagonist must slowly work her way to the truth of who-dunnit and then confront the murderer-perpetrator, typically spewing such exclamations as 'It was you!  You were the one who...'  Now, I know mysteries are actually a very popular genre and beloved by many.  Therefore I think The Liar Society would appeal much more to other readers.  But for me, personally, here's why this book and I didn't click:


The whole plot of this book felt vaguely familiar, like a clique that isn't quite over-used enough to be a clique, per say... it's just all eerily similar to an episode of Ghost Whisper you saw last week.  The premise-- a girl dies in a terrible tragedy and her friend later receives mysterious emails from her disused account telling her to seek out the truth-- is a 'hook' if I've ever heard one, and this was absolutely a difficult book to put down once you got started.  Yet I figured out the mystery of who killed Grace and why and who was involved long before our MC Kate did, which ruined the intended suspense even in the long-awaited climax and confrontation with the baddies.  I also was never quite clear on whether or not Grace-- who appears to Kate several times, often only as a glimpse of a black-haired girl who turns out to be somebody else entirely-- was in fact a ghost, or if Kate was simply spurred on by the memory of her best friend and somehow projecting her ghost.  None of the characters except for Kate and Grace were very memorable-- even Liam, the bad boy-type Kate begins to reluctantly date on-and-off and who the authors try to frame as the prime suspect, didn't make much of an impression.   I was annoyed by the pink-haired girl on the cover, too, if only because I did not read of one pink-haired girl in the book. (UPDATE: Turns out the ARC copy I won is drastically different from the finished book.  In the early ARCs, Kate is a plain brunette and never dyed her hair after Grace's death.)


Now, as to what I did like: I liked the feel of the exclusive private school, Pemberly Brown, which the girls attended.  The details of the stacks in the library's basement, the old chapel, and Grace's memorial bench made it an interesting story world to visit.  The warring secret societies and age-old traditions of the school proved cool as well, especially a candle-lit ritual among sophomore girls in a tower on school grounds.  The story alternates between the present, with Kate trying to piece together the mystery of Grace's tragic death, and the past, when Kate, Grace, and their friend Maddie received mysterious invitations to one of the school's most clandestine ritual celebrations... and Grace failed to come out of the chapel where it was to be held alive.  Overall, I certainly didn't love this one, but I think a lot of readers would.  It's 4+ stars rating on Goodreads proves that.

Cover: 3/5

Premise: 4/5

Characters: 3/5

Plot: 3/5

Overall Rating: 3/5

The Babysitter Murders by Janet Ruth Young

Genre: YA contemporary
Pages: 304 (hardcover)
To Be Published: July 26th by Atheneum
Recommended for: someone looking for a different, intriguing contemporary read
*I received this book from Simon & Schuster in exchange for an honest review, and this is no way affected my review, and yada yada*

My Take:
Dani Solomon loves her after-school job babysitting Alex, a sweet if spoiled little boy whose mother is often preoccupied with work.  Yet slowly but surely, Dani comes to dread babysitting for Alex, because she just can't shake the feeling that she's going to kill him.

Dani is appalled by her own horrible thoughts of killing Alex and knows she would never do such a thing, yet the disturbing mental images and thoughts continue.  As the repetitive and horrifying thoughts begin to interfere with other aspects of Dani's life, including her friendship with her BFF Shelley, Dani makes the mistake of turning to Alex's mother for help.  When she confesses her thoughts about killing Alex, his mother calls the cops on Dani-- and begins a community-wide "witch-hunt" against Dani, as parents and former classmates alike turn against her, sickened and convinced that she is a serial killer waiting to happen.  Meanwhile Dani struggles to deal with the war which is being waged in her own mind-- the crushing effects of her specific brand of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.  But when an extremist group targeting community violence-- who don't mind resorting to violence themselves-- set their sights on Dani, her very life may be at stake. 

OCD is a funny little thing.  Almost 1% of the population have some noticeable form of it, and it manifests in so many different ways.  Yet the phrase OCD, for many, brings to mind someone obsessively scrubbing their doorknobs clean of germs and vacuuming six times a day.  I'm not one to get into too much personal information, but I have quite a few OCD behaviors myself, so I was very interested to read this book about a girl whose OCD gets her into a whole world of trouble on the wrong side of citizens' arrest.

Our protagonist Dani is really a sweet girl, even despite her gory thoughts, and her struggles against her own mind and what she feared she might do were heart-felt and painful.  There were plenty of times when I wanted to scream at her for speaking about her impulses with other people.  (Yes, sharing is good, dear Dani, but sharing our urges to kill people's children with them is something that we should probably avoid.)  I liked the subplot with Dani's friend Shelley and it was nice to read about a YA heroine who was well-supported by her family-- or her mom, anyway.  Beth Solomon rocked.  I can only hope that, should I be suddenly targeted by the local newspaper and a crazy, extremist citizens' militia group as a possible child killer, my own mom would be there to pull me out of the fray.  This book is a quick read, and actually held my attention despite the fact that my copy was an e-book and I typically find it difficult to get into e-books.  In short, The Babysitter Murders is a very good, thought-provoking book.

Cover: 3/5

Premise: 5/5

Characters: 4/5

Plot: 4/5

Overall Rating: 4/5 

Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins

Genre: YA contemporary
Pages: 372 (hardcover)
Published: December 2010 by Dutton
Recommended for: everyone on the planet who hasn't read it already

I know none of you book bloggers and bookish people have ever heard of this little-known book before, have you?  Well, here's my take on it, anyway, because I simply couldn't resist. ;)

  When Anna Oliphant's newly-filthy-stinking-rich father, who made a fortune penning the world's most heartbreakingly pointless romance novels, announces that he's sending her to the American Academy of Paris for her senior year of high school, Anna could not be less thrilled.  She's an Atlanta girl, a Southern belle sans the accent, and can't stand the thought of being ripped away from her best friend and her job at the local theaters-- not to mention the guy she's been crushing on for forever.  But it's Daddy's orders, so off to Paris Anna goes, an American girl who speaks hardly a word of French and has not yet realized that French fries are not even, in fact, French. (Personally, I felt betrayed when I found that out, but they're technically Belgium fries.)

At the American School, Anna falls in with a ragtag group of international best friends-- including the charismatic and devastating Étienne St Clair, who stakes his claims in being French, English, and American.  Anna feels an instant connection with St Clair as she struggles to adjust to her new life in Paris, but even as she begins to fall in love with him, she cannot ignore the fact that St Clair has a serious girlfriend already.  With both of them are determined to remain best friends, Anna's school year turns out to be a series of hilarious antics and time spent with St Clair as much as one of deep-felt sadness and longing.  But Paris has a reputation as the City of Lights and Romance, and it's doubtful that Anna and St Clair can possibly fail to realize a love as strong and sweet as theirs.

One of the coolest things about this book, for me, was that I've actually visited the American Academy of Paris when I saw a play there, which featured one of my cousins, two summers ago.  I remember thinking that my small-town high school was dull and homogeneous in comparison, and it was fun to read about Anna's adventures in the boarding school.  The setting of Paris is parfait for a love story such as this, and I loved Anna and her friend's various excursions through the city and its lovely parks, as well as the Cemetery (which has to be the most enormous cemetery in the world-- I'll never forget seeing it roll by the train into the city).  Anna is a fantastic heroine, genuine and emotional without being one of those whiny girls I loathe so much in contemporary.  I have noticed that contemp seems to be moving faraway from those whiny girls, actually, so yay for that!  St Clair ties with Virgil (see my review of Revolution, another book set in Paris, actually) for the Favorite Guy Character of 2011 Award.  I loved how he had flaws, like chewing his thumb, and I loved how he was shorter than Anna and had a drawing of himself as Napoleon above his headboard, and I especially love how he wanted to become a history professor. (Me, too!)  He and Anna were perfect for each other-- that much was obvious from their first meeting.

All in all, this is the kind of book best read while quietly sipping coffee in a cafe, or else relaxing on the beach as you chug down a few pina coladas.  I hope everyone who hasn't already experienced this book will find some time to enjoy it this summer.


Overall Rating: 5/5 all around

The Piper's Son by Melina Marchetta

Genre: YA contemporary
Pages: 336 (hardcover)
Published: March 2011; originally published 2010 in Australia
Recommended for: anyone up for an amazing, emotional contemporary roller coaster ride

Synopsis:
The award-winning author of Finnikin of the Rock and Jellicoe Road pens a raw, compelling novel about a family’s hard-won healing on the other side of trauma.
 
Melina Marchetta reopens the story of the group of friends from her acclaimed novel Saving Francesca - but five years have passed, and now it’s Thomas Mackee who needs saving. After his favorite uncle was blown to bits on his way to work in a foreign city, Tom watched his family implode. He quit school and turned his back on his music and everyone that mattered, including the girl he can’t forget. Shooting for oblivion, he’s hit rock bottom, forced to live with his single, pregnant aunt, work at the Union pub with his former friends, and reckon with his grieving, alcoholic father. Tom’s in no shape to mend what’s broken. But what if no one else is either? An unflinching look at family, forgiveness, and the fierce inner workings of love and friendship, The Piper’s Son redefines what it means to go home again.

My Take:

So... I've finished another Melina Marchetta book!  It's become my goal to read all of her books by the end of summer.  The Piper's Son picks up where Saving Francesca left off, though you definitely wouldn't have to have read Francesca to read this one-- the characters are the same people, but they have changed so drastically from one book to the next.  Tom was a lovable if immature high school boy determined to be a great guitarist in the first book, and here he is a broken young man, wrestling with the problems of the family and friends he left by the wayside after the tragic death of his Uncle Joe-- a death which still haunts each member of the Mackee family in ways most of them are still too terrified to explore.

The book switches from the (third person) POVs of Tom and his aunt Georgie.  Georgie is a thirty-something single lady pregnant with her ex-boyfriend's kid (the ex is still very much up for debate).  She's at war with herself over her feelings for her ex, Sam, and like Tom, is having a hard time coping with Joe's death.  Melina Marchetta writes with such striking rawness about human emotion-- with so much gritty truth that occasionally this book took a depressing turn as the characters did.  But as always, there is so much hope and a number of laughs (Tom's friends kept ragging on him about how he cried when Frodo and Sam made their way to Mount Doom in The Return of the King movie-- I just wanted to sob 'me, too!'). 

I'm really enjoying reading books by Aussie authors set in Australia, though really life there isn't so drastically different from that of the US.  I admit it's partly because of all that wondrous Aussie slang.  For example, I never knew that 'footy' was Aussie short-slang for football (always thought it was a kind of baby shoe).  And I'd never heard the word 'pashing' (means snogging, or making out) before reading this book.  Ah, learn something new every day, right? ;)

I loved how Tom slowly realizes how much he needs his friends: Francesca, Justine, Jimmy, and the whole gang.  And the emails Georgie sends to Joe's address-- never to be opened, of course-- were as heartrendingly honest as the emails Tom sends Tara, the girl who he thought he once thought he was in love with, are highly entertaining with their exchanges of sarcasm... as well as very telling about the strength of their relationship.  Tara was one of my favorite characters from Saving Francesca, so I wish she'd had more of a physical presence (she was in Indonesia for mostly the entire book).  But she was always right there with the gang, in a way-- in their constant texts and emails, and always in Tom's heart and mind.  The Piper's Son is a beautifully written, heartfelt and very honest, down-to-earth novel. 

Cover: 5/5
Premise: 5/5
Characters: 5/5
Plot: 4/5
Overall Rating: 5/5
*This book qualifies for the 2011 YA Aussie Reading Challenge*

Forbidden by Tabitha Suzama

Genre: YA contemporary
Pages: 288 (US ARC)
To Be Published: June 2011 in the US; published 2010 in the UK and Australia

 Synopsis:    
Seventeen-year-old Lochan and sixteen-year-old Maya have always felt more like friends than siblings. Together they have stepped in for their alcoholic, wayward mother to take care of their three younger siblings. As defacto parents to the little ones, Lochan and Maya have had to grow up fast. And the stress of their lives—and the way they understand each other so completely—has also also brought them closer than two siblings would ordinarily be. So close, in fact, that they have fallen in love. Their clandestine romance quickly blooms into deep, desperate love. They know their relationship is wrong and cannot possibly continue. And yet, they cannot stop what feels so incredibly right. As the novel careens toward an explosive and shocking finale, only one thing is certain: a love this devastating has no happy ending.

My Take:  


With Forbidden, Tabitha Suzama has taken something typically considered one of the worst social taboos-- incest-- and written a beautiful, intense, and ultimately tragic love story.  This is a difficult book to review and a really difficult one to 'push' (I am an infamous book-pusher), because I think a lot of readers will automatically shy away from the subject of incest, even in a YA book.  I was uncertain myself at first, but all those fantastic reviews and the sheer intrigue of the premise eventually seized my attention.  This is a thought-provoking book whose ultimately heartbreaking romance that grows from its first hints and whispers near the beginning of the book to its shocking and unexpected finale. 

The story is told in alternating POVs: Lochan and Maya are the dual narrators, with Lochan's chapters being decidedly more engaging.  Maya and Lochan are brother and sister, yes, but at times they seem more like a couple-- the two of them are constantly having to care for their younger brother and sister and put up with the scathing words and disobedience of their rebellious brother, Kit.  Lochan is something of an outcast at school: he has severe social anxiety and barely speaks to anyone outside his immediate family.  His anxiety was very painful to read about, for me.  I wanted so badly for someone-- a teacher, his good-for-nothing mother, anyone-- to reach out to him.  As Lochan began to realize his feelings for Maya, I even half-wished that one of them would fall in love with somebody else... but eventually it becomes clear and obvious that they have always been in love, and always will be.  The two of them are best friends and each other's only confidantes-- soul mates, really, and I don't use that phrase lightly. (Mostly due to the risk of sounding like a Lifetime Network movie. ;)  The ending just about killed me, because by that time I was so emotionally invested in the book and the characters, even though I knew it couldn't possibly end well. (It says in the synopsis, even, 'a love this devastating has no happy ending'.  So yeah.  They aren't kidding.) 

In the end, I'm not sure how enjoyable this book is to read-- in fact, reading it was often painful-- but the author was obviously not intending a fun, light-hearted read in Forbidden.  More like the most emotional, tragic, incredibly, mind-numbingly realistic book I've read all year.  Definitely recommend this one to readers who think it sounds like something they'd want to read.  Sorry for the train wreck that is this review-- I had no (eloquent) words for this book.  It's something you have to experience reading for yourself, I think.  The 4.5 rating is because it broke my frick'in heart, and I'm docking it .5 in revenge!   

Cover: 4/5

Premise: 4/5

Characters: 5/5

Plot: 4/5

Overall Rating: 4.5/5

Saving Francesca by Melina Marchetta

Genre: YA contemporary
Pages: 243 (paperback)
Published: 2003 in Australia; 2006 by Knopf in the US
Recommended for: contemp enthusiasts; fans of Jellicoe Road

My Take:

Francesca Spinelli is one of a few dozen girls at St Sebastian's, a previously all-male high school which has only recently become co-ed.  Her so-called friends from her old school, Stella's, have moved on and seem to be thriving apart from her-- swooning over boys and enjoying their last few years of high school.  But Francesca finds herself struggling just to make it from day to day: she's lumped in with three 'weird girls' from her old school; is in her eleventh year and has no idea what she wants to do with her life.

Things take a sharp turn for the worse when her mother, who has been a lovable, commandeering tyrant her entire life, refuses to get out of bed one day.  She's suffering from depression of unknown causes, and Francesca's family is suffering with her.  And then there's that deplorable, snotty-- yet oddly enticing-- Will Trombal, who Francesca can't seem to get out of her head.  Even as everybody in Francesca's life seems to be crashing without a wave, she begins to find some solace with her reluctant new friends at St Sebastian's, the nights they spend cruising around or just talking, the music they create together, the stories they swap... but it's the secrets Francesca is hiding from them, and denying to herself, which may be her ultimate downfall if she cannot find a way to rescue her mother and even herself.

That synopsis I've written sounds a little depressing, but really this book was far from it.  The pages are filled with quirky humor and lovable characters who are quirkier still.  From super-activist, feminist Tara Finke to the obnoxious and musically gifted Tom MacKee, I loved all of Francesca's friends at St Sebastian's.  Her old friends at Stella's-- the ones she left behind when her mother forced her to attend St Sebastian's for the 'better opportunities'-- drove me insane, in contrast.  They were so shallow, and I couldn't believe Francesca-- who's intelligent enough as well as strong even when she's feeling so down-- longed to be friends with them again.

The characters had the potential, I think, to be cliches, but didn't come across that way at all.  The brilliance of Melina Marchetta's seem to be all in the details-- the little things, the little memories.  She doesn't just write about characters, she writes about people, about entire lifetimes.  I really admire this aspect of her writing, as much as I admire her realistic but hopeful resolutions-- this woman is quickly becoming one of my new favorite authors!  I've been trying to stagger the pile of her books I have sitting in my room, but I keep moving them up a few books in the stacks. Oops.  So right now I'm reading The Piper's Son, which is about Tom MacKee, one of my favorite characters in Saving Francesca.  The review for that will be up in about a week.  Anyway, another fantastic book by Melina Marchetta, though I didn't adore this one quite as much as Jellicoe Road.  It's also a very quick read, so I recommend this to absolutely anyone-- think it would be a good choice for teenage 'reluctant readers'.


Cover: 4/5

Premise: 5/5

Characters: 5/5

Plot: 4/5

Overall Rating: 4/5

Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green+ David Levithan

Genre: YA contemporary

Pages: 310 (hardcover)

Published: 2010 by Dutton

Recommended for: those who enjoyed John Green's other books-- Looking for Alaska, Paper Towns, etc

Synopsis:

It’s not that far from Evanston to Naperville, but Chicago suburbanites Will Grayson and Will Grayson might as well live on different planets. When fate delivers them both to the same surprising crossroads, the Will Graysons find their lives overlapping and hurtling in new and unexpected directions. With a push from friends new and old — including the massive, and massively fabulous, Tiny Cooper, offensive lineman and musical theater auteur extraordinaire — Will and Will begin building toward respective romantic turns-of-heart and the epic production of history’s most awesome high school musical.

My Take: 

I really wanted to love Will Grayson^2.  I'm going to call it that, "Will Grayson to the power of two" since there's no way I'm typing the name twice every time I mention the title.  

Anyway, John Green is one of my favorite Youtube gurus, and I also really enjoyed his most awesome book Looking for Alaska.  I've never read anything by David Levithan, but I do know that the two authors collaborated on Will Grayson^2 like this: John Green wrote a chapter from one Will's point of view, then Levithan wrote one from the other Will's, and the entire book alternated like that.  One thing that drove my OCD crazy was that the fact that the second Will Grayson-- I'll call him 'Emo Will'-- 's chapters were written without capitalized letters at the beginning of sentences, and there were no quotation marks, etc.  I'm sure most people wouldn't mind at all, but it drove me crazy. (-er.)  John Green wrote from the first person POV of the Will I'll call 'OWG' (other Will Grayson), because that's what Emo Will calls him.  There was nothing especially special about OWG-- he was an ordinary guy, a pretty nice guy who's maybe-maybe-not crushing on a girl named Jane, a guy mostly keeps his mouth shut and tries not to draw too much attention to himself under any circumstances.  This proves very difficult for OWG, given that his best friend is Tiny Cooper.  

My favorite line from the book, without a doubt, is on the first page: 'Tiny Cooper is not the world's gayest person, and he is not the world's largest person, but I believe he may be the world's largest person who is really, really gay, and also the world's gayest person who is really, really large.'  I cracked up immediately, and that's when I knew that this was going to be one funny book.  There's a joke or two on every page-- especially in OWG's chapters-- and about 60% of them are pretty funny. (A couple fall flat.)  There's also about a half dozen swear words on every page, but I got used to it pretty quickly.  Tiny Cooper can be downright hilarious at times, though I did think he was a little bit of a stereotype gay guy: flirty and kind of nosy, loud.  I did like his character, though, more than either of the Will Graysons.  

The plot is that Tiny wants to stage a musical at his and OWG's high school, a musical about his life and many failed romantic relationships and ex-boyfriends.  There are more than a few obstacles to him staging this play, but not as many as there would be in real life, if you know what I mean.  I mean, if somebody at my high school (which is admittedly located in the Southern US) tried to put on a play where the leading character was openly gay, I think there would be riots and all kinds of horrible reactions.  But I guess everybody's just keeping it real and is totally accepting in Will Grayson^2's Chicago-land.  This book should probably be called Tiny Cooper^2, realistically, though I realize the irony is missing with that title. ;)  But there's twice as much Tiny Cooper in the story as there is OWG and Emo Will.  

Emo Will, by the way, I have so named because well, he's pretty darn emo.  He's severely depressed and it's hard not to sympathize with him over that, but Emo Will very quickly grated on my nerves.  He has a friend named Maura who really likes him (even though Emo Will's actually gay, he hasn't told her about that or the fact that he's been exchanging instant messages with a mysterious guy named Isaac for a long time now.)  Emo Will is such an *ss to Maura, though we find out she's not exactly a saint, either.  I think the overall problem with me and this book was that there was no one character I immediately connected with-- they were all sort of okay, but I didn't really fall in love with anyone.  The ending is also not so impressive... seemed like a big let-down after 300 pages.  The best thing about this book is the humor-- it is truly hilarious at times.  I realize that has probably been a thoroughly confusing review, what with the two Wills and my ramblings, so kudos and thanks to you if you stuck it out! 

Cover: 4/5
Premise: 4/5
Characters: 3/5
Plot: 3/5
Overall Rating: 3/5

Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta

(Originally titled: On the Jellicoe Road)
Genre: YA contemporary
Pages: 432 (hardcover)
Published: 2008 by Harper Teen in the US




This is such a beautiful book: complex and funny and heartbreaking, and so utterly real that sometimes while reading it I just stopped and had to go back and read a line or two out loud, just to take it all in better.  I've read a lot of really good books this year, but Jellicoe Road might just take the cake-- I know for a fact that it will end up on the Best of 2011 list come December.  No summary or review can really describe the emotion and depth of the characters and the tragedies and the way all the different elements and sub-plots of the story come together in time for an ending as bittersweet, and yet somehow very satisfying, as any I've ever read.  But I'll try my best.

The Jellicoe School has been at war for eighteen years.  For six weeks at the beginning of every school year, the Cadets-- a band of boys from a military school-- arrive for their annual occupation of Jellicoe Road and the surrounding countryside.  The Jellicoe students, many of whom are renowned for being 'troubled' kids, wage territory wars against the Cadets and the equally ambitious Townies, fighting and plotting tooth and nail to hold their ground.  This year, senior girl Taylor Markham has been chosen as The Leader of her school's military exploits, despite her track record of being somewhat unstable.  With the arrival of the Cadets comes the return of their leader, the enigmatic Jonah Griggs, whom Taylor daily regrets running away with a few years ago.  But she's determined to not let Jonah-- or anyone-- get the best of her or the Jellicoe School.  

But even as she attempts to forge new alliances with the Townie kids and attempts to resist the irresistible lure of Jonah-- who she loves as much as she hates--, Taylor's past comes rushing back at her.  She begins to slowly discover old secrets, coincidences and connections and clues, all of which seem to trail back to one person-- Hannah, her beloved guardian who took her in after Taylor's mother dumped her in the Jellicoe Road gas station six years ago and hasn't made an appearance in Taylor's life since.  After Hannah disappears with scarcely a trace, Taylor fears she has been abandoned yet again.  She must search for clues to uncover more about the tragic story and remarkable friendship of five teenagers who lived on Jellicoe Road eighteen years ago if she wants to find out the truth about Hannah and the mysteries of her own life.          
I loved just the feel of this book, the way the words flow and the characters interact and the pieces of the plot slowly start to make sense.  The reluctant friendships Taylor has with Jonah and Santangelo (the Townie leader) and all the other teens rang very true to me; Taylor and Jonah were very much like an older (and romantically involved, at least part of the time) version of those two kids on the playground who trip each other and talk trash, but secretly everybody knows they're harboring crushes and they get along just fine half the time.  Jellicoe Road itself did feel like something of a Shangri-La to me-- I wanted to go there and see the flowers those kids planted so long ago and walk to the Prayer Tree and climb up into that old treehouse with graffiti scrawled all over its trunk.  As much as I enjoyed reading it, Jellicoe Road is the kind of book that will make you cry.  But it's not at all the all-despairing, I'm-bawling-like-a-baby-and-why-did-I-ever-want-to-read-this? agony; there were as many happy moments that made me smile as there were sad ones.  It's an emotional roller coaster ride, at the risk of sounding cliched.  This is one of those books I'm just going to have to buy, because I will definitely be reading it again soon.  Recommend Jellicoe Road to everyone and anyone-- go read it now!!!    

Cover: 5/5 (Perfect. Both editions have perfect covers.)

Premise: 5/5

Characters: 5/5

Plot: 5/5

Overall Rating: 5/5

*This book is the first I've read for the 2011 YA Aussie Reading Challenge.  Awesome start to the challenge.* 

Gemini Bites by Patrick Ryan

Genre: YA contemporary/ romance/ LGBT

Pages: 240 (hardcover)

Published: March 2011 by Scholastic

Recommended for: anyone who thinks a funny coming-of-age-type romance (of both straight and gay varieties) sounds like their thing

Summary:

One of the strangest (and funniest) love triangles ever to hit YA fiction, when a pair of twins (one boy, one girl) both fall for the boy who moves in with them…who may or may not be a vampire.
Judy and Kyle Renneker are sixteen-year-old fraternal twins in a rambling family of nine. They have a prickly history with each other and are, at least from Judy's perspective, constantly in fierce competition. Kyle has recently come out of the closet to his family and feels he might never know what it's like to date a guy. Judy, who has a history of pretending to be something she isn't in order to get what she wants, is pretending to be born-again in order to land a boyfriend who heads his own bible study.

When their parents announce that the family is going to be taking in a fellow student for a month so that he can finish the school year before moving away, both Kyle and Judy can't help but sit up and take notice. Garret Johnson, who is taking temporary residence in the newly finished attic, is a young man who moved into town less than a year ago and who is a mysterious, goth loner . . . and claims to be a vampire. He's not an easy person to get to know by any means, but the twins find him (to varying degrees) both strange and alluring.

My Take:

DISCLAIMER: Gemini Bites is NOT a paranormal romance.  The token description seems to be: a teenage vampire moves in with a set of dysfunctional twins and a love triangle ensues.  In actuality, readers will find admittedly few sparkling vampires within these pages.  But the book more than makes up for its somewhat misleading synopsis with a slew of hilarious one-liners and lovable characters.  The love triangle (er, love quadrilateral) is as funny as it is somewhat bizarre, and the sheer randomness of the goings-on in Gemini Bites kept me hooked from the first page to the last.    

Garret Johnson, the alleged vampire who moves into twins Kyle and Judys' attic, is a very interesting enigmatic stranger, as we can gather immediately from his initial introduction of himself: 'The name's Garret.  As opposed to garrote, the device one might use to strangle a person.'  Yeah.  And he just gets delightfully weirder from then on out.  Though Kyle initially worries that Garret might want to suck his blood some night and Judy is very preoccupied with snagging her newest crush by pretending to be a devout Christian (it's kind of a long story), both of the twins begin to develop romantic interest in Garret, who is as charming as he is maddeningly evasive about his own past.  We're purposely left in the dark about whether Garret's gay or straight, and the twins-- who are constantly in competition-- battle it out, each vying for the attention of their eccentric new house-mate. 

The novel switches points of view every chapter, letting us into both Judy and Kyle's heads.  I have to say I liked Kyle's chapters much better, mainly because Judy is incredibly conniving and often cruel, always lying to get her way, even though she's justified in her own mind.  Kyle is the opposite: self-demeaning and hilarious and obsessed with the music of Bob Dylan. (Go figure.)  Judy's best friend Sasha, a lovable 'dumb brunette' was by far the best secondary character, but it was also impossible for me not to snort with laughter when reading about Coover, Kyle's classmate who started the rumors of Garret's vampiric nature in the first place and decides to make a step toward ridding the world of evil, Mr. Pointy-style.  (Five points to your house if you got the Buffy reference.)

This book is laugh-out-loud hilarious and I loved how it handled LGBT: Kyle's family is so okay with his being gay (with nine in the family, they could barely give his coming out the time of day), and he certainly isn't the stereotypical sassy-gay-friend who we sometimes see in YA books.  All the characters and the storylines (weird as they sound in summary) are very believable, and the happy ending ties up every possible end of this darn good yarn.  My one complaint is that hardcover Gemini Bites costs about 18 US dollars in chain stores and $14 on Amazon.  On Amazon?!  This is a skinny, 240 page book and I read it in one sitting.  Considering you can buy books three times that size for a few dollars less online, I think that is nothing short of ridiculous.  But I'm no expert on pricing (though I am an expert on book-buying ;).  What do you guys think?

Cover: 3/5

Premise: 5/5

Characters: 5/5

Plot: 4/5

Overall Rating: 4/5 
*Thanks to Good Golly Miss Holly ARC Tours for the review copy* 

Bitter Melon by Cara Chow

Genre: YA contemporary 

Pages: 309 (hardcover)

Published: December 2010 by Egmont USA 

Frances, a Chinese-American student at an academically competitive school in San Francisco, has always had it drilled into her to be obedient to her mother and to be a straight-A student so that she can go to Med school. But is being a doctor what she wants? It has never even occurred to Frances to question her own feelings and desires until she accidentally winds up in speech class and finds herself with a hidden talent. Does she dare to challenge the mother who has sacrificed everything for her?

My Take: 

I'd call this book contemporary fiction, even though it technically takes place in the 80s.  Only occasionally was I reminded of the time period, and really Frances's situation-- being the daughter of a hard-working, yet brutally harsh, immigrant mother-- is far from unique to the 80s.  Bitter Melon is very well-written and Frances's voice was honest and pure in a way which leaves a precise impression of her-- she's not a protagonist I'll soon be forgetting.  The demeaning hardships she endures under her mother's watchful eyes and biting tongue were sometimes difficult to read, but teens' straining to meet parents' expectations, as well as the expectations of those coveted Ivy schools is a huge aspect of our lives which is underrepresented in contemp lit.  

Bitter Melon introduces readers to a lot of Chinese-American culture through Frances's eyes.  Her mother is a "Tiger Mom" twenty years before the phrase ever became popular-- she consistently pushes Frances to succeed in school, but her idea of greatness is limited at best.  When Frances has a scheduling error and ends up in speech class instead of Calculus, she discovers a knack for public speaking and writing.  Her mother has always pushed her to become a doctor-- so that she can become wealthy and one day take care of her mother, who is sick and has spent her entire life working long hours so that Frances can attend a private school.  When Frances meets Derek, a (non-Chinese) boy at a Princeton Review class, she breaks another of her mother's most confining rules when she begins to secretly date him.  As Frances's senior year winds down, she is faced with a huge dilemma: should she continue to obey her conniving and often abusive mother's wishes, or leave her mother to pursue her new-found dream and the boy she loves?  That big question is the one author Cara Chow asks us readers as well, through Frances's well-crafted speeches and questioning of her mother's strict Confucian values which she has always respected in the past. 

As an academic-achiever who often finds herself overwhelmed by the sheer amount of choices for the future, not to mention the ongoing crises and assignments of high school, I identified with Frances completely.  The way she goes on to find her own voice is inspiring and her personal transition is really just fantastic.  I loved her sorta prim best friend and cousin, Theresa, as well, but found her mother very hard to sympathize with.  The woman is bordering on tyrannical!  She may have given up everything for her daughter's future, but that doesn't give her the right to beat Frances over the head with a trophy she won!   

Bitter Melon is a unique and beautiful read, as enjoyable as it is thought-provoking.     

Cover: 5/5 (the model fits Frances's description picture-perfectly)
Premise: 5/5 
Characters: 4/5
Plot: 4/5 
Overall Rating: 4.5/5

Swoon by Nina Malkin

Genre: YA paranormal romance
Pages: 425 (paperback)
Published: 2009 by Simon Pulse
Recommended for: older teens and adults looking for a fun paranormal romance


Summary:
Torn from her native New York City and dumped in the land of cookie-cutter preps, Candice is resigned to accept her posh, dull fate. Nothing ever happens in Swoon, Connecticut...until Dice's perfect, privileged cousin Penelope nearly dies in a fall from an old tree, and her spirit intertwines with that of a ghost. His name? Sinclair Youngblood Powers. His mission? Revenge. And while Pen is oblivious to the possession, Dice is all too aware of Sin. She's intensely drawn to him -- but not at all crazy about the havoc he's wreaking. Determined to exorcise the demon, Dice accidentally sets Sin loose, gives him flesh, makes him formidable. Now she must destroy an even more potent -- and irresistible -- adversary, before the whole town succumbs to Sin's will. Only trouble is, she's in love with him. What do you do when the boy of your dreams is too bad to be true?

  My Take:

After the thought-provoking, dark read that was Wintergirls, I really needed a book like Swoon to remind me that one of my primary goals in reading is to have fun: to fall in love with the characters and laugh every few pages and, after trying to savor the last page, wish that I could magically skip forward in time to the release date of the sequel.  Swoon is a tremendously enjoyable book, perfect for summer reading (and it's really starting to feel like summer down here in the Carolinas!)

Our heroine Dice, a life-long New Yorker who's conservative only in terms of hiding her latent psychic powers, feels out-of-place spending her summer in the preppy Connecticut town of Swoon, where family secrets abound and appearances are everything to the local high school crowd.  When her cousin Pen becomes possessed by the spirit of a seductive and fun-loving young man who was wrongfully hanged in colonial times, Pen suddenly feels inspired to pursue (and thoroughly catch) her crush of a few years, along with a half dozen other guys.  Dice, alarmed by Pen's uncharacteristicly promiscuous behavior, attempts to exorcise the mysterious Sinclair Youngblood Powers from her cousin-- and ends up turning him into a real boy. (Kinda like Pinocchio.)  The town of Swoon falls in love with charismatic, sexy Sin, and Dice herself wonders whether she isn't falling in love with him, but Sin has revenge on the brain.  He crusades to make the town of Swoon open up to their true selves, to make them accept differences and their true, blunt feelings for each other the way their ancestors didn't accept him-- a mistrusted stranger in their mist lynched for a crime he never committed.  Chaos ensues, and while some of the Swanoa High students are happy with their new lifestyles and the unlikely pairings formed by Sin's influences, Sin still has one big fish to fry: the great-great grandson of the man who murdered Sin's first love hundreds of years ago and got him hung, a patriarch whose abuse of his modern-day family may just be stopped too late.

Dice's first-person voice is as funny and refreshingly sarcastic-- these kids actually act and talk like teenagers, unlike the kids in a lot of YA books-- as Sin is charming.  There are a few holes in the plot and a few unlikely events that initially made me relatively scornful (a dead guy possesses you because you fell out of the tree where he was hung, come on).  Also the fact that every one of Swoon's local teens had a one-syllable nickname (Dice, Pen, Sin, Con, Marsh, Duck, you get the gist of it) made all the different characters a bit confusing to follow at first.  But overall, I was able to overlook all the little details and moments like that for the sheer sake of enjoying the book.  This is such a fun, light read, and the 400 pages just fly by.  The writing and characters are completely unique even though the plot summary sounds like something must of us have heard before.  It's also incredibly addicting, like a combination of Gossip Girl and Kelly Armstrong's The Summoning series.  Scandal warning: sex plays a big part in this book, though it's nothing too explicit, just recommended for mature teens and adults who don't mind that stuff like I mentioned before.  This paranormal romance and all-around enjoyable book is definitely going on my recommendations page!

Cover: 5/5 

Premise: 3/5 

Characters: 5/5 

Plot: 4/5 

Overall: 4.5/5   
 
*Thanks so much to Jennifer at Extreme Book Reviews for this book!*

Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson

Genre: YA contemporary
Pages: 278 (hardcover)
Published: March 2009 by Viking


Summary:
“Dead girl walking,” the boys say in the halls.
“Tell us your secret,” the girls whisper, one toilet to another.
I am that girl.
I am the space between my thighs, daylight shining through.
I am the bones they want, wired on a porcelain frame.

Lia and Cassie were best friends, wintergirls frozen in matchstick bodies. But now Cassie is dead. Lia's mother is busy saving other people's lives. Her father is away on business. Her step-mother is clueless. If she keeps on going this way—thin, thinner, thinnest—maybe she'll disappear altogether.

In her most emotionally wrenching, lyrically written book since the National Book Award finalist Speak, best-selling author Laurie Halse Anderson explores one girl's chilling descent into the all-consuming vortex of anorexia. 


My Take:

This was a very difficult book to read at times.  Lia's story is as compelling as the obsessive voice inside her head-- the one that keeps reminding her how many calories are in each orange peel, how gruesomely fat she is even as she looks when she looks in the mirror and sees a fragile mannequin.  Anorexia is a horrible place to be, and like the motel room where Lia's friend Cassie died alone and miserable, it's often an excruciatingly hard place to get out of.

I've read Laurie Halse Anderson's Speak and a couple of her other books (Identical and Twisted), and Wintergirls definitely follows in that tradition.  Lia's first person narration is broken, written in an almost poetic style, with scratched out words she wants to take back scarring the pages everywhere.   I didn't really enjoy reading the style, but having waded through it, I definitely feel this is another poignant, edgy and somewhat disturbing novel from Laurie Halse Anderson.  Lia's pain and never-ending struggle with anorexia is all too real in this jarring page-turner of a book, and there were definitely times when I had to put it aside and read something lighter for a while.  I do love all the symbolism: mannequins and wintergirls and a dead girl walking and matchsticks and a car running on empty for far too long.  The memories of Cassie and Lia as best friends and wintergirls together, each trying to become the skinniest, were what what made the book strong and Lia's character so real, the reason why this 'edgy' book will stand out in my mind among others written about teen anorexia and bulimia.  I would have liked to see a little more of their relationship before Cassie's death (she haunts Lia the entire book, encouraging her to give in to her self-loathing thoughts), because I kept getting the feeling that Lia knew Cassie better than the reader ever gets to know her, so to speak.   Lia's sarcasm gives this dark book a hint of humor, but also gives us a further glimpse into her mistrust of her family and rejection of any help they might offer her.  That was my real pet peeve here: I disliked how nobody in Lia's family, not her father nor her stepmother or her bio-mother, does anything to really help her.  They might make a passing attempt to get the girl to eat, but most of the time it seemed like Lia's little sister was way more clued in than everybody else. 

There's no doubt that this is a beautiful book: beautifully written with beautiful symbolism, beautiful cover... but it's the story of a girl who is so desperate to be beautiful, she cannot see the slow deterioration of her body and mind.  This was a difficult review to write, because I really feel that Wintergirls is a very personal read-- other reviews I've read for it range from unimpressed to enthusiastic raves about profound it is.  Everyone will get something different out of this one, and opinions seem to vary on a wide scale.  Lia's voice captivates from the opening sentence to the timidly hopeful ending, and will likely haunt readers for a long time to come.

Cover: 5/5

Premise: 4/5

Characters: 3/5

Plot: 3/5

Overall Rating: 3.5/5

Special Guest Review: Schooled by Gordan Korman

Today I have a very special guest reviewer... please welcome my sister Pinky to a Myriad of Books!  She wants me to tell you that she's very tall (much taller than me, though I want to tell you that I'm older), has a pet killer unicorn, is on the Battle of the Books team at school, and is secretly a mermaid.  Online personas are such fun...

Genre: YA/MG contemporary
Pages: 224 (hardcover)
Published: 2007 by Hyperion
Recommended for:

Synopsis:
Homeschooled by his hippie grandmother, Capricorn (Cap) Anderson has never watched television, tasted a pizza, or even heard of a wedgie. But when his grandmother lands in the hospital, Cap is forced to move in with a guidance counselor and attend the local middle school. While Cap knows a lot about tie-dyeing and Zen Buddhism, no education could prepare him for the politics of public school.

P!nky's Take:

Schooled is a fast paced, realistic fiction story about a boy named Capricorn Anderson.  Cap lives with his grandmother in a hippie community where he is home schooled, set apart completely from the world, named Garland Farm.  Back in the day, Garland Farm was full of treehuggers and peacemakers.  But in present day, the only citizens of the community are Cap and his grandmother.  Not much of a community right?  It seems to work pretty well for them.  In the beginning of the story, Cap's grandmother, 'Rain', falls out of a plum tree.  What was a seventy something year old doing in a plum tree you ask?  Why picking plums of course!  Since Cap is an avid driver, (at age 13) he drives Rain to the Emergency room, having no idea of what he would be exposed to in the next couple months-- the horrors of public middle school.

 Everything is totally against what he has been taught at Garland.  People are fighting over the most ludicrous things, getting shoved into lockers, and receiving something called a 'wedgie' that doesn't look very pleasant.  Cap is always finding small wads of wet paper lodged in his enormous mound of dreads and everyone is always obsessing over something he has never even held in his hand-money.  When living with a social worker and her outraged teen daughter, getting picked on by the whole school, and having your only friend be the biggest nerd in school isn't enough, try getting elected 8th grade president.  Sounds like a good thing right? An honor? Yeeeeeah no.  Truth is, there is a group of popular kids who run the whole school and everyone in it.  During their 8th grade year, they control the whole place, and they make sure the biggest dweeb in town is elected president so they can all laugh at the poor sap as he screws up.

Schooled is hands down one of my favorite books of all time.  The way Gordon Korman makes the characters come to life and gives you the sense that you are right there beside them the whole time is an excellent job on his part.  The novel is from 6 different points of views, meaning each chapter a different person is telling their side of the story.  I have found that this tends to keep things interesting, because some characters can get you frustrated, make you bored, infuriate you, and some will delight you and make you want to hear more from them.  Cap's only friend when he first arrives is the biggest dunce you could imagine and a shoe-in for 8th grade president, a guy by the name of Hugh Winkleman.  It doesn't matter how totally awesome you are, if you have a name like that, you were born to be a yo-yo.  Everybody knows that Hugh Winkleman is the next 8th grade president, what with all the wedgies Zach Powers and his popular crowd have given him in the past 2 years.  So when Cap comes along, in his corn husk sandals and tie dye tees, Hugh was overcome with joy.  How Korman writes with such accuracy on how middle schoolers feel and think, is beyond me.  It's like he is writing it first hand and can tell you exactly what every person's perspective is in full detail!  Young or old, brainy or buffoon, I would recommend Schooled to anyone.

Keep it real,
Pinky

Cover: 4/5

Premise: 5/5

Characters: 5/5

Plot: 5/5

Overall Rating: 5/5

Boyfriends with Girlfriends by Alex Sanchez

Genre: YA contemporary romance, LGBT
To Be Published: April 2011 by Simon and Schuster
Pages: 224 (hardcover)
Recommended for: readers maybe 15 and up, teenage and adult
Synopsis:
Lance has always known he was gay, but he's never had a real boyfriend. Sergio is bisexual, but his only real relationship was with a girl. When the two of them meet, they have an instant connection--but will it be enough to overcome their differences? Allie's been in a relationship with a guy for the last two years--but when she meets Kimiko, she can't get her out of her mind. Does this mean she's lesbian? Does it mean she's bi? Kimiko, falling hard for Allie, and finding it impossible to believe that a gorgeous girl like Allie would be into her, is willing to stick around and help Allie figure it out.
Boyfriends with Girlfriends is Alex Sanchez at his best, writing with a sensitive hand to portray four very real teens striving to find their places in the world--and with each other.
My Take:

Officially the most fun book I've read in a long, long time.  Not only are the characters are endearing, the friendships and romances sweet, and the 224 pages nowhere near enough-- Boyfriends with Girlfriends is just the kind of book that makes you smile.  There are so many one-liners which, besides being funny, speak volumes of the characters' awkwardness and uncertainty.  Gay, straight, bi, whatever-- this is a short contemporary novel of teenage love and 'maybe-love' which anyone 16 to 100 can enjoy.

The story is told from four different alternating, third-person points of view.  It stars two pairs of friends: sensitive and easygoing gay guy Lance and his best friend, sweet, straight, beautiful Allie; confident and funny Sergio, who's bisexual, and his best friend Kimiko, a Japanese girl whose traditional family and 'Tiger' mother can't seem to accept that she's lesbian.  The guys hit it off immediately and bring their respective female friends along to their first date at a restaurant.  Allie, far from being the stereotypical, out-of-your-league preppy girl Kimiko first takes her for, turns out to be a total Japan-phile and Otaku, and the girls hit off as well, becoming great friends very quickly.  I loved the girls' different references to manga and anime (being a bit of an Otaku nerd myself), and the way their friendship progresses from happy chatter and texting to the beginnings of a romance.  Meanwhile Lance, doubts that Sergio is truly bisexual.  (The whole on-one-side-of-the-fence-or-the-other theory.)  The conflict eventually tears a rift in their fresh relationship, but I'll leave you with no doubt-- this book has a happy ending.

The story is very dialogue-driven, and that's fine, because the dialogue is great and feels absolutely natural.  The characters' complexities and depth make them seem like flesh and blood, and I absolutely can't wait to check out some of Alex Sanchez's other books.  I have to say my favorite character was Kimiko, but Boyfriends with Girlfriends is one of those rare novels where there is no weak link in the storytelling-- I loved all four characters' POVs, and would love nothing better than to see a sequel out sometime soon.  (Well, not too soon, considering the book won't be released until April.)  Anyway, definitely mark this one down on your ever-expanding to-be-released list!

Cover: 5/5 

Premise: 5/5 

Characters: 5/5 

Plot: 4/5 

Overall Rating: 5/5

A Blue So Dark by Holly Schindler

Genre: YA contemporary
Pages: 266 (paperback)
Published: 2010 by Flux

Synopsis:
Fifteen-year-old Aura Ambrose has been hiding a secret. Her mother, a talented artist and art teacher, is slowly being consumed by schizophrenia, and Aura has been her sole caretaker ever since Aura's dad left them. Convinced that "creative" equals crazy, Aura shuns her own artistic talent. But as her mother sinks deeper into the darkness of mental illness, the hunger for a creative outlet draws Aura toward the depths of her imagination. Just as desperation threatens to swallow her whole, Aura discovers that art, love, and family are profoundly linked—and together may offer an escape from her fears. 


My Take: 


A Blue So Dark is a contemporary tale which is both edgy and profound.  Holly Schindler's writing is beautiful and atmospheric, perfectly giving voice to our fifteen year old narrator, Aura Ambrose. (What an awesome name :)  The book was much shorter than my typical read (I'm a sucker for a nice tome) and therefore I was left with the feeling that the story was not fleshed out quite as much as it could have been.  But this glimpse into Aura's life and that of her mother, a brilliant yet very sick schizophrenic woman, is more than worth the read.  

Aura Ambrose is terrified that her entire life has revolved around creativity, around making happiness from nothing and learning to create art like her mother Grace, an art instructor and talented painter.  Terrified because she believes that her creativity will one day lead her to the mental illness that is hereditary among artists in her family.  Her mother has struggled with schizophrenia for years, even before Aura's father abruptly abandoned his happy hippie lifestyle with his first family and left them for a cashmere-wearing, upper class new wife.  As her mother's condition worsens, Aura is forced to neglect school in order to care for her, all the while trying hard to suppress her own boundless creativity.  She tries desperately to reforge her relationships with her best friend Janny, a teen mom who has her own hardships, along with her father and estranged grandmother.  

Every single character in this novel, from the drunks next door to gutsy, reckless Aura and her mother, are so brilliant and manage to enthrall you with a story which admittedly doesn't progress along at a break-neck pace.  The only character who didn't ring true for me was actually Aura's seldom-present love interest, a skater dude named Jeremy.  There's a subplot in the novel where he basically walks up to her and says 'Hey, girl, you draw right?  Paint something cool on my skateboard.'  Aura mentally swooned, whilst I mentally snorted.  Her grandmother Nell, by the way, is a photographer who is working on a photo autobiography and just one of the coolest literary grandmothers ever.  At times the book can seem dark and a little disturbing-- you wonder how any of it can possibly end well.  The good news is that the ending is actually pretty much perfect for the story-- no 'and they all lived happily ever after', but it ends on a good note.  (Hope that doesn't qualify as a spoiler. Sorry, if it does.)

I don't read too many contemporaries (and indeed picked this book up at the library because the cover caught my eye and I thought it must be a mermaid novel-- yeah, ha), but A Blue So Dark is a book which beautifully portrays the happiest moments of life and the bonds of family which can never truly be severed, as successfully and matter-of-factly as it does the dark depths of depression and isolation, desperation and fear.  Excellent read.  

Cover: 5/5 

Premise: 4/5 

Characters: 5/5 

Plot: 4/5 

Overall Rating: 4/5