Review: Don't Stop Now by Julie Halpern

Julie Halpern totally won me over with Into the Wild Nerd Yonder, so even though Don't Stop Now didn't promise me nerdy D&D hijinks, I still needed to check it out. There may be no D&D, but I love road trips, so I thought this would be worth a shot - and I was totally right.

When Lillian's sorta-friend, Penny, leaves her a weird voice mail at 4:30 in the morning, Lil doesn't think much of it. "I did it?" What does that even mean? But then her parents started calling. And then the cops. Apparently Penny has been kidnapped?

Except Lil is pretty sure Penny faked it - she kind of mentioned that once. And Lil has a feeling she may have run away to Oregon. So she calls up her BFF (and major-crush) Josh, and the two set out on a road trip from Chicago to Portland with nothing but Josh's dad's credit card and the clothes on their backs. Along the way the dynamic duo stop at all the great tourist-attractions of fly-over country - the Badlands, Wall Drug, the Corn Palace, etc. And Lil keeps hoping that this trip, probably their last great adventure before she moves away for college and Josh starts pursuing his music career in earnest, will be the trip that makes Josh see her as more than just a girl friend.

In between the chapters of Lil and Josh's antics, we also get short, heartbreaking scenes from Penny's life over the last year or so. Glimpses of a family that uses her as nothing more than a baby sitter, and boyfriend that uses her as a doormat - and a punching bag. It's not hard to figure out why Lil might have decided to run away - but did she really fake that kidnapping?

This story is a road trip and story of friendship first and foremost - the long term friendship between Lil and Josh, as well as the lengths Lil will go to in order to help someone who didn't have a lot of options in the friend-department. The romantic angle was played just right. There's some angst here, because Lil has pretty much always loved Josh but he's never seen it, but that never overwhelms their friendship. Even when she's a little disappointed that they only literally slept together in a cozy motel bed, she still has fun with their zany road trip.

Even though for most of the story we only get small insights into Penny, I really liked her as a character, too. Who didn't have a friend/acquaintance that they knew just well enough to say "hi" to at parties and work on projects together if there was no one else in the class? And a lot of us have probably been in friendships like that where one person clearly read a lot more into it than the other did. The vignettes also painted a clear picture of why someone might stay with a boyfriend (or girlfriend) who clearly isn't right for them - who can be outright abusive. It's terrifying and played exactly right - Penny's story lends some gravitas to what would otherwise be a light romantic comedy.

Julie Halpern is two-for-two with me so far. Her characters are always dynamic, funny and honest. I can't wait to see what she comes out with next!

Pink by Lili Wilkinson

I was super excited for this book - Australia, theater, and, most importantly, a bisexual protagonist! And in fact, there are lots of small things to love here, but I was never quite sold on our protagonist.

Ava has always been a dutiful daughter - going with the flow at her public high school, eschewing pink (and most other colors) from her utilitarian wardrobe, and spending lots of time with her radical anarchist girlfriend. Did I mention that Ava's parents are anti-establishment types? But Ava yearns for some normalcy in her life - demanding academics, pink argyle sweaters, and maybe even a boyfriend or two. So she convinces her parents that she should start attending a rigorous private school, a place where no one knows the old Ava and she can make herself over without anyone from her old life commenting on the change.

While her new look immediately ingratiates Ava with the popular "pastels" of the school, that doesn't make her new life easy. Joining the stage crew of the school musical (after an epic crash and burn at the actual auditions) in order to be close to the cutest boy on campus, Ava finds the "Screws" are the school's social lepers - and decides that she's now qualified to give them a social leg up even while she's precariously balancing her new social status, and hiding her new self from her old girlfriend and family. Most troubling to Ava is balancing her emotions - she still feels close to her girlfriend Chloe, but she undeniably finds the lead guy in the musical hot, and then there's the cute and helpful leader of the Screws who makes her feel all sorts of confused. Which Ava is the real Ava? And will she ever become comfortable with herself?

For me, Ava herself was the biggest problem of the story, in that she doesn't seem to actually grow in any meaningful way. The best illustration of this for me was when she tried to play matchmaker among the Screws, and it fails miserably, in part because Ava makes a lot of assumptions about the people whose hearts she's toying with. But in the end, Ava pulls the exact same stunt...only because it's a platonic set up everyone's okay with it? Also I have to say that while I love having a character proudly call herself a feminist, Ava has some extremely retrograde and ill-informed feminist thoughts. Which would be okay if she'd come up with them independently but considering her parents are professors and should be on the cutting edge of gender studies, it doesn't make sense that Ava would be so incredibly wrong sometimes (and really, asking the kid of Asian descent where he's "really" from? Wow, not okay. And that's pointed out in the text, but is again illustrative of just how out of touch with progressive and feminist thought Ava is).

BUT, it is encouraging to see a story with a bisexual protagonist - not that Ava uses the label for herself, but it's probably the closest label that fits. She makes it very clear that her relationship with Chloe is real and important and certainly not just a phase, and while it's a little preachy I did feel it was important to include some acknowledgement of the legitimacy of that relationship to make it clear that Ava wasn't just a lesbian until the "right guy" came along to straighten her out.

Also, science fiction geeks will have a lot of fun with Ava's stage crew friends, as they are huge nerds. In a delightful way. Lots of discussions of Star Trek and Lord of the Rings and zombies and...just general geekery. Gotta love that.

Review: Clara and Mr. Tiffany by Susan Vreeland

My first introduction to Susan Vreeland was in high school when I read The Passion of Artemisia. At the time it was being considered for the BBYA list because of the teenage protagonist. It didn't end up making the list, but it was a powerful story - based on the life of Artemisia Gentileschi, a 17th century painter who often depicted strong women of the Bible and mythology. A haunting and captivating story. So when I heard that Vreeland had a new book, I knew I needed to get it - I didn't even look to see if it was based on a real person this time around and just dove in!

Like Artemisia, Clara Driscoll is an artist constricted by society's attitudes about what women can and should accomplish. Instead of paintings, however, Clara works in glass, and is responsible for creating some of the most famous designs for Louis Comfort Tiffany's innovative glass lamps.

While working for Tiffany is a dream come true in some ways, it's incredibly stifling in others. The unionized male glass workers don't appreciate the women's department, headed by Clara, getting some of the greatest commissions. And while Tiffany is rather forward thinking in hiring women at all, he has old fashioned notions about married women, namely that they shouldn't be working. Clara resigned from Tiffany's once before to get married, but returned upon the death of her husband. She longs to have a romantic companion in her life again, but is also loyal to Mr. Tiffany, and then there's the matter of her life's passion in being an artist. How is Clara supposed to choose?

There are also wonderful subplots and minor characters - Clara has several gay friends she interacts with throughout the story, growing quite close to some of them, but my favorite recurring subplot had to be Clara's burgeoning social consciousness and labor organizing. When the male glassworkers start grumbling about all the work the women are doing, Clara organizes all of the women to march to work in solidarity under the banner of labor rights and women's rights. She counsels many of the young women in her department to improve their skills so they can earn more money to support their families, and delay marriage as long as possible to be sure they can start their married lives with a bit of money of their own. She also gets a bicycle, which just makes me want to read Wheels of Change even more (NYPL, Queens Library: WHY DON'T YOU HAVE IT YET?!). I have a feeling Clara's bike rides really illustrate a lot of what that book is talking about.

Clara has some thoroughly modern attitudes, but they're tempered by some truly Victorian attitudes that keep her from coming across as too 21st century, such as buying into the "benevolent" stereotype that women are more attuned to color so it's okay that they are segregated in their own department in the glass factory. She's overall a great character because she has so many different interests, passions, and problems that she truly comes to life. The same can't be said for all of the side characters, as especially some of the men in the periphery of Clara's life are hard to distinguish from each other.

So was Clara Driscoll a real person? Absolutely - though no one knew it until 2006. Because I'm a huge geek I would have liked a longer author's note at the end about Vreeland's research. While she relates the discovery of Clara's letters that led to the re-evaluation of the design of Tiffany lamps, I wondered how much of the characterization of other historical characters were based on fact - especially Louis Comfort Tiffany himself. But hey, I suppose I can find a biography of him on my own and try to learn for myself what may have been fact and what was fiction in Vreeland's complex depiction.

Review: Bitter Melon by Cara Chow

Speech geeks unite!

Debate gets brought up all the time as a geeky competitive high school activity, but I never did it. Because I was caught up in something even geekier: forensics, aka competitive public speaking. So when I saw that Frances joins the speech team in this book, I knew I had to read it, because speech geeks don't get nearly enough love.


Frances's life revolves around her mother. Her mother, an immigrant from China, demands utter perfection from her daughter, sending her to an academically challenging high school to ensure Frances will get into a prestigious college with plenty of scholarships to propel her through medical school, after which Frances will be able to take care of her.

The only problem in this scenario - Frances isn't positive that she wants to follow her mother's map for her life. When Frances is accidentally assigned to speech class rather than calculus, at first she figures she'll just sit in the class for a week or two and then transfer to the right one before the deadline. But as the hip and cool teacher recognizes an innate speaking ability in Frances, she ends up sticking around - the first secret she's kept from her mother. Frances knows on the one hand she is being ungrateful - her mother truly has made great sacrifices, working long hours in order to afford Frances' tuition, not to mention clothes, food and rent. But until taking this speech class, Frances has never had the opportunity to consider her own desires, and what might be driving her mother's quest for Frances' excellence. Is her mother truly concerned for Frances' future? Or merely her own?

Frances's mother isn't a nice person. This is probably an understatement. Reading the physical and, especially, the verbal abuse she puts Frances through is absolutely painful. But Chow does an excellent job of slowly revealing the abuse, as Frances's world is slowly opened through her experiences on the speech team. It's not so much that the team magically opens Frances's eyes, but rather as her teacher encourages her hidden talent, Frances begins to understand the power that words can hold.

While Frances and her mother have a very complex relationship that is the core of the novel, most of the other relationships suffer from lack of definition. The friendship between Frances and Theresa especially seems to be one of convenience, as the girls quickly befriend each other after one kind act on Theresa's part, as Frances seems to have resented the girl for years. After that the friendship's up and downs seem to be defined more by what will complicate Frances' life more than anything else. The romantic subplot also takes awhile to get going, and while her crush's personality may not be the most well developed, the details of their relationship were refreshingly authentic - overpowering deodorant, clammy hands, and sweaty outfits all called to mind my early romances more than any idealized romance novel ever could.

As a speech geek, I can totally vouch for the authenticity of the competitive aspects of the book. Frances' competitions superficially differ from how mine were set up, but different states have different rules, and of course she was competing over 10 years before I entered the high school speech scene. But there are some emotional aspects that will always ring true - and every speaker has faced terrible audience members like Frances' nemesis throughout the book! In more ways than one, the scenes of Frances' speech career are a light and necessary break from the oppressiveness of her home life.

Review: The Latte Rebellion by Sarah Jamila Stevenson

Found via: Reading in Color

I was super excited going into The Latte Rebellion, not only because it's one of the few YA books to prominently and proudly feature multiracial characters, but because I was also part of founding a social justice club in my high school (a Gay-Straight Alliance). I had a lot of infrastructure to fall back on in my case, as opposed to the creation of a new movement from the ground up as Asha, Carey and Miranda do here, but there were enough similarities that I was quite excited. And for the most part, the book doesn't disappoint.

It all started as a joke, really. A small money-making venture to fund a pre-college vacation. Tired of being treated as foreign and somehow "less-than" by their peers, Asha and Carey found "The Latte Rebellion" - a website with a manifesto about recognizing that people don't always fit into one neat racial, ethnic or cultural category, and lots of links to buy their T-shirts. But almost overnight, the site goes viral and takes on a life of its own. Actual Latte Rebellion clubs spring up at high schools and colleges across the country - while ironically Asha's own high school refuses to recognize them, claiming that there isn't sufficient need for a club that openly embraces multiracial students.

Undeterred, Asha continues the rebellion, along with her friend Miranda, while Carey shies away from the increasing attention and time the rebellion takes away from her homework, work and relationships. Asha is nervous herself - especially as the rebellion continues to grow and attracts undesirable attention. But she is convinced of the rightness of her cause, and even as she faces severe repercussions for her involvement, Asha  is determined that the rebellion, and herself, is recognized as a positive force.

While in many ways this is very much a story about race, it is also about much broader and universal topics like self-confidence, friendship and education. I especially enjoyed how Asha's relationships mature and change over the course of the novel, as it reflects a lot of the changes people go through during life-altering events, even innocuous and positive ones like graduating high school and just growing up in general.

What held me back from unabashedly loving this is that a lot of the plot feels like it's based on coincidences rather than moving forward organically. I wasn't quite convinced with the reasoning for the school rejecting the Latte Rebellion in the first place, and the quick jump to conclusions about the purpose of the group seemed far too fast. Just a few too many negative coincidences to keep me totally immersed in the story. While I've read of complaints about the Latte Rebellion being organized as primarily a money-making venture, the only problem I had with the idea is that Asha and Carey still planned on keeping most/all of the money for themselves even as it became clear how important people felt the cause was. It seems to me like as soon as other people started getting involved, they would have demanded to know what the T-shirt profits were going to go towards. When it was just a couple of friends goofing off with a website, Asha and Carey were free to do whatever they wanted, but once real people in their lives got involved, it seems like the plan should have changed a bit.

Review: I Am J by Cris Beam

A book about a transgender teenage boy of color. Excellent. A book about a transgender teenage boy of color that I can recommend because it's a great book not just because it fills a void? Awesome.

For as long as he can remember, J has been positive that he is actually a boy. Unfortunately, the rest of the world doesn't see him that way - to his parents, he is still Jeni, their beloved daughter, despite the short hair, boxers, and baggy male clothes. All his life, J has hoped and prayed for some sort of miracle - that he'd wake up one day and be in the body he belongs in. A few months before his 18th birthday, the next best thing happens: he discovers testosterone shots, the best chance he has before surgery of starting to look how he feels.

Comfortable in his decision to truly live the way he sees himself, J still has a host of obstacles to overcome. Parents that don't want to lose their daughter. A self-absorbed best friend that J might have feelings for. And the cute girl at the downtown Starbucks that definitely has feelings for J - without knowing what he's hiding beneath his layers of clothes. But J is determined that nothing will distract him from his ultimate goal - living as the man he wants to be.

Some of J's struggles are incredibly intense. Reading about the discord between him and his parents was terribly painful, mostly because both of J's parents seem like real people. They're well-meaning, but flawed, blinded by their love for the child they want to be raising rather than the child they have. We see more of J's mother than his father, but his father still makes quite an impact on the scenes he's in.

I loved that, unlike many other LGBT novels, the angst and main conflict in this doesn't stem from J questioning his identity and freaking out over it - from page one J knows that he should have been born in the body of a boy, and the conflict arises from his struggle to get the rest of the world to recognize the validity of that feeling. However, I'm not quite sure I buy the fact that J didn't learn about testosterone or chest binders until he was almost 18 - not when he says he's seen pictures of sexual reassignment surgeries online. But it's about the only convenient coincidence in the novel, and having J learn about these at the start of the novel means we aren't subjected to awkward info-dumps on Trans 101.

This is a beautifully multicultural book - one that reflects what New York City actually looks like. All sizes, shapes, colors, genders, and sexual orientations are represented in a very organic way. The downside is this also means the darker side of people comes out sometimes - it was a little uncomfortable to see gay and trans characters calling bisexuals "gross," but it does go to show that just because you are a member of one oppressed group, that doesn't mean you magically understand and love all others.

Being a cisgendered woman, I can't comment on whether J's story is actually authentic or not - all I can say is that it feels totally real, both the good and the bad parts. Beam includes an author's note that details her research process - she's written a nonfiction book about transgender teen girls and the ideas for J's story sprung from her notes and research on transgender boys that didn't fit into her nonfiction work. She definitely seems like she's done the research, and has done an excellent job of shedding light on an under-represented community.

Reviewed from an ARC picked up at ALA annual 2010. I Am J is now available - check it out soon!

What Have I Missed? Review: How I Live Now by Meg Rosoff

This is supposed to be my February book...but I ran out of days in February, thanks to my vacation/honeymoon. So here's the anxiously-awaited (if responses to my Goodreads review tweet are any indication!) of 2005 Printz Award winner How I Live Now.

In an attempt to escape her father and her horrible new stepmother, Manhattanite Daisy is spending the summer in rural England with family she hardly knows - her mother's sister and her four children. What is supposed to be a boring and relaxing summer takes a turn for the unexpected when, a day after her aunt has left the country on business, war breaks out in England.

Alone in the countryside, the five kids band together as a family in ways Daisy never imagined possible - from becoming so close they're practically telepathic to the decidedly more than familial love she shares with Edmond. But as the danger moves closer to their secluded outpost, Daisy must draw on reserves of strength she hardly knows she has to try to keep the little family together.

Pretty much every review of this I saw before going in brings up the incest - and now I guess I'm guilty of that too. But all of those reviews made such a big deal out of it I was sure I was going to end up with a romance story with some vaguely dystopian feelings. Let me assure you, that's totally not the case. Really, I'm kind of surprised that cousin-incest really gets people up in arms at this point. Just because you don't want to bang your cousin doesn't mean it's actually the grossest thing in the world. Much grosser: undead boyfriends that watch you sleep and try to control who you can spend time with. Or kidnappers. Abusive relationships of any kind, really. Priorities, people.

What this is, is a survival story. This is about how Daisy finds the strength, through extraordinary circumstances, to stop beating herself up and rediscovering her family and her will to live.

But ultimately, that wasn't quite enough to keep me riveted to the story. I put the book down a couple of times and wandered away to read something else. It may have had something to do with the writing style - it's very postmodern what with its complete absence of quotation marks. Considering the kids are pretty much psychic that makes it very hard to tell what is actually spoken and what is thought. The psychic-abilities were a bit random themselves - the whole of the writing just felt rather unsettling and unjustified.

What I did like was how Rosoff was able to subtly show how Daisy evolves over the course of the novel. There are hardly any moments when these changes are stated outright and instead they're left for the reader to pick up on and contemplate. An excellent example of an author trusting her audience to get it without hitting us over the head with character development or Messages.

Review: Love Drugged by James Klise

Found via: I'm Here, I'm Queer, What the Hell do I Read?

The basic premise of this book is fraught with the possibility of going down a baaaaaaaaaaad road. Gay kid starts taking a pill that will make him straight. Not hard to see how this could open up some really bad plot lines, or at least unfortunate implications - and I can't tell you how relieved I am that it does not go in that direction!

Jamie Bates is 15 and if he knows anything about himself it's this: he's gay. But for Jamie, that's just about the worst fate he can imagine - he's sure that he'd be ostracized at school and maybe even kicked out of the house he shares with his parents and his grandparents. So as he enters high school, Jamie figures he needs to play it straight, if you will. He's going to keep a low profile, and just try to fit in. When one of the most beautiful girls in school starts paying attention to him, Jamie figures he might as well go for it - maybe he just needs to meet the right girl, right? And Celia Gamez is pretty much everyone's idea of the right girl - beautiful, funny, smart, and rich since her dad is a big name in the pharmaceutical development industry.

Jamie enjoys spending time with Celia, but isn't feeling much of a spark - until he discovers that her dad is developing pills that will eliminate homosexual desires in men. Desperate for some medical help, but unable to discuss this openly with his girlfriend's dad, Jamie starts stealing pills and taking them on the sly. As his relationship with Celia escalates, the drug starts having worrisome side-effects, and Jamie has to create an ever-more elaborate series of lies to explain his behavior, even as it's becoming obvious that whatever the drug is doing, Jamie isn't acting like the person he wants to be.

Klise is a debut author, but he handles this potentially fragile subject with sensitivity and deftness - explained perhaps in his author's note where he acknowledges that when he was 15 he just might have taken such a pill if it were available to him. I think anyone who has questioned their sexuality will recognize themselves in Jamie - the fear of being discovered by the wrong person, the internalized homophobia, and an overwhelming desire to just feel normal. Klise does an excellent job of bringing Jamie fully to life, flaws and all.

I'd say about 90% of this book is excellent - some of the plausibility is lost in the last chapter as the villain is revealed and the hijinks escalate to Saturday morning cartoon proportions. It's a weak note to leave the story on, but isn't insurmountable.

Love Drugged also presents a bit of a twist on the overworked-oblivious parents routine - instead of being high powered workaholics, his parents are working constantly to try to keep the family's heads above water. They moved in with Jamie's grandparents years ago, promising it as a temporary solution, that has slowly grown more permanent. It's not exactly a nuanced portrayal of how middle class families respond to economic crises, in part because most of the adults are two-dimensional and hardly have any screen time, but I appreciated a multi-generational household being presented as more-or-less normal.

I'm still accepting suggestions on which books I should take on my vacation! Check out yesterday's post and add your vote!

Review: Taking Off by Jenny Moss

There's a superstition out there that whatever you do on the first day of a new year is something that you'll be doing often for the rest of the year. I'm kind of hoping that I can apply that superstition to books: the first book you read published in the new year should be indicative of how the rest of the year's books will turn out. So I'm really, really glad I chose and AWESOME book to be my first published-in-2011 read.

Annie is a senior in high school in a suburban Texas town facing large, looming questions. Like where is she going to college and what will she do with the rest of her life. Surrounded by engineers who work with NASA, and fellow students who know that college is the next step, Annie isn't even sure she wants to go to college. She loves poetry, and has tried her hand at writing a few times, but is pretty sure she's actually terrible and knows there's no money in the endeavor. She hides her passion from everyone - her divorced parents, her best friend Lea, and even Mark, her boyfriend of two years.

When Lea, the daughter of NASA engineers, invites Annie to yet another dinner party featuring NASA personnel and astronauts, Annie drags her feet until she learns the Teacher in Space, Christa McAuliffe, will be there. She maneuvers her way to sit next to Christa at dinner, and even though the conversation is rather routine, Annie finds herself inspired by Christa's passion for life and following her dreams. While Annie doesn't know the answers to her big life questions yet, she knows she wants to see Christa's launch into space.

Meeting Christa, and roadtripping with her dad and his handsome young friend Tommy to see the Challenger launch, and ultimately the disaster after takeoff, inspires Annie to start taking risks. Small ones first, but bit by bit Annie draws strength and inspiration from Christa's memory, and is finally able to take off for herself.

First of all, I have to give massive props to Jenny Moss for how she carries off the climactic scene of the Challenger's explosion. I knew going in that it was going to happen, and yet when the shuttle finally launched, and then broke apart, my heart was in my throat. I felt like I was right there with Annie, even though Challenger happened when I was barely a year old. 

The romantic subplot in Taking Off is absolutely superb - because it reflects a lot of the indecision that can happen in relationships, especially young ones. I've gotten burned out on the number of YA books that end with the teens finding their soul mates. Annie is content with Mark, but knows they're not soul mates. So refreshing to see a girl exploring her options!

This Friday marks the 25th anniversary of the Challenger disaster, meaning this book is set at a very specific time that is close enough to feel contemporary but long enough ago that the book's intended audience wasn't even born yet. This is historical fiction that will still appeal to people who think they hate the genre, because aside from the Challenger and a few mentions of cassette tapes, Annie's personal struggles are truly timeless.

Double Review: Rampant and Ascendant by Diana Peterfreund

OMG, you guys. You guys, why didn't anyone tell me that books about killer unicorns are FREAKING AWESOME?!

I don't know exactly why I decided to skip on Rampant the first time around. I think I was focusing more on the "unicorn" rather than the "killer" part of the description, plus I'm just generally prejudiced against fantasy. Then I read Peterfreund's contribution to Zombies vs. Unicorns and was intrigued - I was curious about whether the characters were original and just set in her previously established world (like Carrie Ryan's contribution), or if these characters appeared in the series proper. But then I never made an effort to seek out Rampant. Until I was browsing at the library and Rampant was sitting face out on a shelf. On an impulse, I picked it up.

And I'm so glad I did. And I'm also so glad I didn't get Rampant until Ascendant was already out, so I only had to wait a week rather than a year to get more of Astrid's story.

Astrid Llewelyn has grown up listening to her mother's crazy stories about killer unicorns. When the rest of the world believes unicorns are mythical sparkly creatures, what else can a trying-to-be-normal 16 year old do? So when her boyfriend is attacked by a real live killer unicorn during a late night make out session in a forest, Astrid's concept of reality is turned upside down.

Her mother, however, sees this as an opportunity, and doesn't hesitate to ship Astrid off to a nunnery in Rome that is the 21st century reincarnation of the ancient Order of the Lioness - an order of nuns who dedicated their lives to protecting humanity from the unicorn scourge. And it just so happens that Astrid's family line was historically known to be the biggest, baddest hunters out there. With the financial support of a pharmaceutical company hoping to find the mythical Remedy derived from unicorns and said to be able to cure anything, Astrid and an international crew of hunters band together to learn the truth of the unicorn Reemergence and defend humanity from the long-forgotten threat.

Ascendant picks up shortly after Rampant ends. While the world at large is well aware of the unicorn threat, the Cloisters is still falling short in their funding and recruitment goals. As soon as they find a girl capable of being a hunter, she quickly decides to relinquish her eligibility. And the only organization willing to fund the Cloisters is the Vatican, who want to place some strict rules on the young women who've taken over their nunnery. To add more worry to Astrid's plate, her boyfriend is heading back to the US and one of her best friends and fellow hunters is mysteriously losing her hunting powers.

So when Astrid has the chance to escape the Vatican's strict rules, gain funding for the Cloisters, and re-focus on her scientific passions all in one go, she leaps at the chance. It doesn't hurt that she also gets to hang out in the French countryside, too. But being part of Gordian Pharmaceuticals again opens up a host of new questions for Astrid, making her question her loyalties as a hunter and a scientist.

What excited me the most about these two books is just how darn feminist they are. Seriously, these are some of the most feminist books I've read since The Disreputable History of Frankie-Landau Banks. Throughout both books there are positive depictions of young women's sexuality, and then especially in Ascendant there's discussions about women (even those who weren't unicorn hunters) who defied traditional notions of femininity to follow their passions in science and medicine. And then yes, there's the idea of a secret group of women who are all that stands between humanity and the unicorn scourge. Women with big swords = awesome.

In Ascendant, Peterfreund also excels where Suzanne Collins failed in Mockingjay to give us an injured protagonist who is a little foggy...yet still manages to keep the story going. Whereas Katniss became half-comatose every time a big plot point comes up, Astrid powers through her injury, acknowledging she's weaker and she can't remember some things sometimes while other things are crystal clear (even if they might be hallucinations...?). Yes, it's a bit confusing, but damn if it doesn't work amazingly. I felt Astrid's frustrations right along with her.

On the other hand, every once in awhile Astrid is a bit...dumb. Even before her catastrophic injury. Her ex-boyfriend disappears right after she tells the pharmaceutical rep that he's the only living person to receive some of the Remedy...and she really believes he just coincidentally ran away? The big biology student can't figure out why a female unicorn may be hugely fat while all of the rest are grotesquely thin? Neither of these require a degree in rocket science to put together a working hypothesis for. Thankfully, Astrid's inability to put two and two together only happens rarely, and doesn't detract from the overall awesomeness of the two stories. My other minor quibble is the lack of description of what's going on in the rest of the world. By Ascendant it's clear that unicorns are known by the general public, but I want to know how on Earth they reacted. Panic in the streets? Mass migrations back into the cities? Inquiring minds want to know! But otherwise, both of these books fall into the "couldn't put it down" category, and they're so richly written that I did find it took me longer to read them than books of similar lengths, because I just didn't want to miss a word.

Peterfreund also does an excellent job in both books of finishing the main story, while leaving a few hooks for the next book to pick up on. This didn't stop me from feeling extremely impatient while waiting to get Ascendant from the library, but that was out of desperately wanting more of Astrid's adventures rather than needing to know how the darn story ends. Of course, there's a big question left unanswered at the end of Ascendant, and I'm certainly desperate to know the answer!

Rampant is actually what really inspired me to put together my What have I missed? personal reading challenge. Technically it doesn't fit into the guidelines I've set for my reading next year, but it got me thinking about all of the similarly awesome books I've missed out on just because I wasn't paying attention to YA when they were published! So please pop into the comments over there and leave more suggestions - and then go pick up Rampant and Ascendant if you haven't already!

Review: Life, After by Sarah Darer Littman

This is an excellent look at how terrorism can effect one family, but with an unexpected angle, at least from this USian's perspective: instead of looking at terrorism in the US or radical Islamic terrorism, this is some homegrown terrorism - in Argentina.

Dani's life changed forever on her 7th birthday. That was the day terrorists loaded a truck with explosives and drove it into the AMIA building in Buenos Aires. Among the victims was Dani's pregnant aunt.

In the following years, political and economic upheaval has rocked Argentina, and Dani's family. Her father has lost his successful business, reducing the family to dinners of wrinkled potatoes - when there's food in the house at all - eaten by candlelight since the electricity has been turned off. As Dani watches her best friends move - one following her family's Jewish heritage to Israel, another to Miami - she is full of both hope and dread when her parents finally announce they, too, will be moving, to New York where her uncle lives.

Dani has to adapt to life in a new country, a new language, and even a new hemisphere where the seasons are the exact opposite of what they should be. To make things harder, her father isn't having an easy time adapting, and has sunk into a shell of his former self, depressed about the move, everything he's lost, and the charity they must now accept. Dani is scared and angry about the person her father has become, and is tired of having to step up to help take care of him, her little sister, and her mom, when all she wants to do is make friends and maybe even go on a date for once. Life After the terrorism and collapse in Argentina is no picnic, but is it even possible to return to the life they had Before?

I loved Dani, as she's genuinely a good kid, but her entire life is falling apart around her and it's all she can do to keep her head up. Her most complex feelings are reserved for her father, who is clearly suffering from deep clinical depression. As a reader, this was totally clear to me, and sometimes I had to stop myself from empathizing too much with Dani's rages against her father. Yes, he should be picking up her little sister from school or helping with the housekeeping, and it was easy to be angry at him for failing miserably at that, but knowing what depression can do to a person I know I shouldn't have those feelings!

What a sad, yet sweet, book. Littman has taken on several complicated issues, yet distilled them into a clean novel. I loved that Dani's family is not only Argentinian, but Jewish as well, a combination I don't think I've ever seen before. However, this isn't a book about being Argentinian Jews - it just adds a little depth to the family's background and gives them a reason to search out help from Jewish aid organizations. On the flip side, I know there are religious reasons for it, but it was a little jarring to see references to a deity written as "G-d" or "D-os." And there's a lot of praying in this book, so it happens rather often.

Like the kids in Dani's school, most of my knowledge of Argentina comes from Evita, so I loved the insight into the political and economic upheaval that has been rocking the country. The focus of the book is definitely on Dani and her family, so there perhaps aren't as many descriptions of life in Argentina as I would have liked, but Littman does a good job of giving peeks at how life has changed drastically while not distracting from the story she wants to tell.

Review: Bruiser by Neal Shusterman

When I finished reading this, all I could do was agree with Laurie Halse Anderson's cover blurb - this was a wild ride, and absolutely magical.

Brewster "Bruiser" Rawlins was voted "Most Likely to get the Death Penalty" by the school - so when 16 year old Tennyson discovers the brute is dating his twin sister, Bronte, he's pissed and does everything possible to sabotage the relationship, from following the pair to mini-golf to making sure their dad knows the kid's brutal reputation. Bronte, however, insists the others don't know Bruiser - they don't know he's memorized "Howl" and how tenderly he cares for his little brother after their mother has died and they're living with a drunk uncle. Tennyson is reluctantly drawn to Bruiser, after seeing him in the locker room with his back covered in bruises and scars. As Bruiser becomes closer to Tennyson and Bronte, the twins start  noticing strange things happening when he's around - their injuries heal and disappear quickly, while Bruiser adds new ones daily. And while their parents' marriage is crumbling, when Bruiser is around their problems don't seem to be so bad. Bruiser's friendships with Tennyson, Bronte and their family lead to complex questions about the meanings of friendship, family and pain.

I read this shortly after I finally got around to watching The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, and found myself comparing the two in terms of tone and genre. Shusterman has written a story that has some very classical elements, combining a deathly serious story with the slightest touch of fantasy. There is no explanation for Bruiser's abilities, just like no real explanation is given for Benjamin's aging in the movie (and, I assume, the story on which its based). It's just something that exists, and in the face of undeniable evidence, Tennyson and Bronte accept it with little question. They acknowledge it's weird, and they wish they knew the how and why of it all, but when your twisted ankle heals itself in minutes while your boyfriend suddenly starts limping, you can't really argue with what's happening.

There are four narrators to this story: Tennyson and Bronte, then Bruiser and his little brother, Cody. The last two are the narrators that really stick out stylistically, for Cody narrates perfectly in the voice of an eight year old who is simultaneously wise beyond his years and painfully naive. He's never had a real injury, which gives him even more bravado than the average eight year old, but he's also been witness to and subjected to horrific abuse at the hands of his uncle. And Bruiser narrates in amazing poetry - starting with a perfect adaptation of "Howl" before moving into free verse.

This is a dramatic story with some very serious questions at its core about pain, joy, family, responsibility and friendship. The magical touch of Bruiser's ability gives Shusterman a unique way to comment on life, without having to go too far into the realm of fantasy. It is a perfect blend of the fantastic and the all-too real.

Review: I Now Pronounce You Someone Else by Erin McCahan

I picked this one up because I was intrigued by the part about a girl in high school getting married. It's so rare that I find a YA book that deals with an event I have handled recently (like a wedding, as opposed to the long ago angst of wondering whether so-and-so liked me) that I wanted to see what was up. I then couldn't stop reading when I discovered the book is set not far from my hometown - and in fact, Bronwen's top college pick is my hometown's college!

Bronwen Oliver is convinced she's adopted. She and her mother have nothing in common (not even their hair color, though her mom tries to mask it with monthly salon visits to bleach out Bronwen's naturally brunette hair). From an early age she has convinced herself that she is actually Phoebe Lilywhite; she and the real Bronwen Oliver were switched at birth and any day now the Lilywhites will return to re-claim their lost daughter. As she approaches the end of high school this is seeming less and less likely, but Bronwen never stops yearning to find her "real" family.

Enter Jared Sondervan. An old friend of her older brother's (aka Jesus, judging by how much her mother adores him), Jared and Bronwen re-connect during a random coffee run and quickly begin dating, even though she's just finishing her senior year of high school and he's finishing his senior year at Hope College. Not only is Jared a perfect gentlemen, kind, courteous and eager to draw Bronwen out of his shell, but his family is large and loving, caring more about happiness than appearances - everything Bronwen's family is not. So when Jared proposes they should get engaged, Bronwen happily says yes. Suddenly prom isn't the biggest date on her calendar - it's her late August wedding at sunset on the beach at Lake Michigan. But as she and Jared begin planning their lives together, Bronwen finds herself questioning her choices. Maybe before she gets married, she has to really figure out who she is first.

Like I said above, this book is set around my home town, and McCahan has totally nailed the setting, right down to the proliferation of Dutch names (and the inevitable duplication of names, even when people aren't related). I about died when Bronwen and other characters were meeting in the very cafe on Hope's campus that I hung out at as a precocious middle- and high school student taking classes there. It's been years since I really considered the area home, but it was so much fun revisiting through Bronwen's eyes.

My one quibble with Bronwen? I literally ground my teeth together in frustration when she quips that every girl has her dream wedding no matter "how cool she pretends to be." Grr. Not true. I know, I know, one tiny line in a whole book, but that sort of declaration about how "all girls" or "all boys" act is incredibly frustrating for us girls (or boys) who don't share those traits! (See Tuesday's review of This Means War!)

In many ways, this book is the antidote to many of the unrealistic and down right creepy romances that have been flooding the YA market as of late. Jared is a legitimately nice guy - he respects Bronwen's boundaries (and good on Bronwen for having those boundaries and knowing when she had to say stop!) and seems truly interested in learning her likes and dislikes. His and Bronwen's problems don't stem from any inherent personality flaws, rather they're just in two very different places. When you're in a long term relationship, whether marriage or dating or domestic partnership, you do have to start thinking in terms of Us, and that was scary enough for me as a college graduate; I can't imagine having to make decisions like that in high school!

Bronwen's home life is painful to read about. Her mother is just awful, stopping just short of actually being abusive, though it certainly doesn't seem like Bronwen had the healthiest home life. Then again, I knew many parents in that area who shared major traits with her mom, namely the all-encompassing need to always keep up good appearances and never, ever offend or inconvenience someone else.

I totally acknowledge that a lot of my entertainment from this book was the setting and recognizing so much of the area that I grew up in. However, I wasn't so blinded that I couldn't recognize that this is a really solid book, and a great romance for people who like complicated and honest relationships.

Review: The Secret to Lying by Todd Mitchell

Since I'm always on the lookout for titles dealing with mental illness, when I saw Publisher's Weekly described this as "a vivid picture of teenage social and mental health issues," I knew I had to have it. The fact that it's set in a boarding school and is filled with pranks, a la the inimitable Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks,  was a bonus.

At his small town high school, James was all but invisible. So when he is accepted to a prestigious boarding school for the gifted and talented, he takes the opportunity to re-make himself into a brooding punk with a history of carjacking and back alley brawls. He quickly falls in with a new group of friends, and even gets a hot girlfriend. Only two people remain unimpressed: the school's ice queen Ellie (who inspires boyfriends to pull crazy stunts like run half naked around campus out of love for her) and ghost44, another student who communicates with James only via IM and sees right through his facade.

During the day, life is going well for James, as he and his friends begin an escalating prank war with a few guys down the hall (and also stage some epic performance art level protests against the awful cafeteria food). But nighttime is a different story, as James begins to dream of being a demon hunter. While the dreams are exciting at first, they begin to bleed over into James' real life, distracting him from his friends and his studies, and inspiring James to attempt deadly feats when he's awake. Will he be able to pull himself out before he gets out of control?

While the pranking wasn't on the epic level of Disreputable History (Frankie's pranks all had some sort of philosophical point behind them while James' are petty and silly), this is definitely an excellent book on identity, belonging and mental illness. James and one other major character have some major psychological struggles (I'm maintaining the anonymity of the other character because the big reveal doesn't come until the final chapter), but it's handled sensitively and deftly. There are no big revelatory scenes, rather James' illness progresses smoothly through the book so even the reader doesn't realize just how dangerous his dreams are until well into the story.

And those dreams - damn are they spooky. I often see dreams used as a sort of lazy plot device, a way for a character to metaphorically examine events of the story without relying on pages of exposition and internal monologues. Here the dreams form a whole other narrative where it isn't immediately clear what bearing they will have on the rest of the story, or if they will at all, and it's all fabulously creepy. The pranks and humor throughout James' waking moments provide and excellent and much needed counterpoint to the seriousness of his dreams and inner thoughts.

Sci Fi Friday Review: Girl Parts by John M. Cusick

Found Via: Lynn at Goodreads

When this popped up in my Goodreads friends update e-mail with four stars from Lynn (who reviews over at Bookends), I knew I had to read it. Even without a longer review attached, I've learned to trust Lynn's judgment, especially when it comes to science fiction.

David is athletic and outgoing, the sort of guy that everyone wants to be friends with - unless you're lower on the high school social totem pole. Then he can make your life hell. Charlie is the opposite, quiet and bookish. But both are diagnosed with dissociative disorders that keep them from making real friends and developing healthy relationships. David's obnoxiously rich parents go the high tech therapy route, presenting David with a companion, a female-presenting android carefully calibrated with intimacy protocols to help David understand healthy relationships. Charlie, being less well off and living off the grid with his dad, chooses to skip the companion treatment, even after it's recommended by the school's new psychologist, Dr. Rogers.

When David discovers he can't go as far as he wants with his companion, Rose, he rejects her, sending the poor companion-girl into a depressive spiral. When Charlie discovers her, abandoned and rejected, he's surprised to discover she's the only "person" he can really talk to, and like a good friend he wants to do everything he can to help Rose get over David and become a more fully-realized individual.

This is definitely a light book in more ways than one. Cusick really could have delved a lot deeper into the characters and this whole companion technology. The story holds up fine on its own without more details, but it certainly would have been a richer, and more science fiction-y, experience with more details.

While this is ostensibly a boy book, with most of the story focusing on David and Charlie, my favorite characters were definitely the girls. Is this just because I've never been a high school boy? Perhaps. But Cusick does a great job developing Rose from a stilted robot to something resembling a real girl. And then there's her sudden BFF Rebecca, who gets Rose drunk to help her forget David. It doesn't work so well, but it's a fun bit of friendship. And then May, the black market technician who jailbreaks companions like others jailbreak iPhones. At first I thought she was going to be totally creepy (she overrides the intimacy protocols so boys don't get shocks when they try to go farther with their companions than they should), but May makes it very clear she believes in the girl's right to choose her boundaries - and gives Rose an extra special parting gift. May totally stole the show for me.

This is a great bit of fluffy science fiction that will easily appeal to boys and girls. It's fun satire of intimacy and internet culture, but stays in the shallow end of the pool.

Review: The View from the Top by Hillary Frank

I picked this up for one reason: the Publisher's Weekly review said it was an "intimate exploration of postgraduate ennui," which I'll admit kind of made me giggle, but also interested me because I love YA that explores the upper age limit of the genre. There are lots of stories about 15 and 16 year olds falling in and out of love, but fewer that explore that precarious time when one really begins to transition from "kid" to "adult."

It's Annabelle's last summer in her small coastal hometown before she heads off to Oberlin to study music in the fall, and it's a season of questions and change. She breaks up with her longtime boyfriend, but doesn't choose to pursue his best friend, even though she's had a huge crush on him. Instead she starts hanging out with a tourist girl, in town just for the summer. Other players in Annabelle's story include her boyfriend's little sister, who has long had a crush on the beautiful older girl, and another musician, who is also in love with Annabelle and doesn't know how to show it. The story of their summer is told from their various points of view.

Annabelle is the center of this story. Which is all well and good...if I found her to be at all likable. Ennui is one thing, but I never found Annabelle to be at all sympathetic, as she was rather self-absorbed, and I couldn't understand why she was at the center of so many people's lives. The story has a strong premise, examining how one person's actions or inaction can affect the lives around her like ripples in a lake, and the end of high school is the perfect setting for such a story, but Annabelle was far too shaky of a foundation to build such a story on.

Review: The Snowball Effect by Holly Nicole Hoxter

The first line of the jacket copy on this book made me thing I was in for a quirky-dark family comedy of sorts "18 year old Lainey Pike can tell you everything you need to know about the people in her family just by telling you how they died." Death is serious, of course, but am I the only one who finds that to be a mildly amusing way to introduce the topic?

I've always had a morbid sense of humor.

Lainey's family is unconventional - she hardly knows her older half-sister, Vallery, as she spent most of her life living with her dad. Her younger brother, Collin, is adopted and has behavioral issues ranging from being on the autism spectrum to ADHD. The three are thrust together to make a new family after their mother kills herself in the basement laundry room.

Lainey is angry and confused. At her mom. At her sister. Even at her long term boyfriend, who is kind and sweet and loving, even with Collin. But the end of high school marks a major life transition, even when half of your family hasn't dropped dead, and Lainey is wondering whether the path she's always had set before her is where she belongs.

Lainey and Vallery are definitely the best developed characters in the book. I kind of got frustrated with how little time was devoted to Collin - he's the whole reason Vallery comes into the story after all. His behavioral and/or developmental issues make communication difficult, but really no one, not even his teachers (who are trained to deal with emotional and developmental difficulties), questions whether his behavior may stem from grief and/or abandonment issues? The boy was adopted as a toddler, so he was in the foster care system for awhile before being adopted, and in short order his adoptive father and mother die violently (motorcycle accident and suicide by hanging). It seemed like sloppy character development, or lack thereof - throw in a character with a disability so the disability can stand in place of a personality.

On the other hand, I loved Lainey's romantic turmoil, between her long-term safe and stable boyfriend, and the rugged, drifter new guy she meets at the 7-11 when she doesn't have the cash for a Slurpee. What's great is Hoxter doesn't give us any easy answers - this isn't the classic love triangle with Lainey pining between the two boys. There's ambiguity here in the relationships and Lainey's feelings. So much YA ends with the lead couple declaring their undying love for each other - and while I don't doubt people feel that way at times, it seems like Lainey's dilemma must be more common.

Nonfiction Monday Review: I Am an Emotional Creature by Eve Ensler

Found via: Amelia Bloomer Project

I debated whether this should be a Nonfiction Monday post or not. It's poetry/monologues, but they are all drawn from interviews and writings of real teenage girls. There are no fictional characters or plot - it's a collection of writings about the real experiences of girls and young women, that have been polished by Ensler. Since Amazon includes it in two nonfiction categories and one fiction category (literature and fiction > Drama), and the Library of Congress headings don't include fiction, I figured it could count for Nonfiction Monday.

Eve Ensler's The Vagina Monologues was a watershed moment for women. A play that spoke frankly about the most shamed part of our bodies. While there are parts of it that are definitely applicable to women of all ages, it's generally not the sort of text you hand to a middle or high school girl. But where can these girls to turn for validation of their experiences? Ensler has filled that void with I Am an Emotional Creature. Inspired by girls all over the world, from US suburbs to eastern European brothels, African villages to middle eastern cities, the poems and monologues interspersed with "girl facts" about our bodies and our treatment around the world (child labor, sex trafficking, etc) give voice to a variety of female experiences. There's the girls at a sleepover playing "would you rather," girls experiencing first love and their "first time," and girls who were sold into slavery - or ran away from home to escape that fate.

The actor in me relished these poems and monologues, as they beg to be performed. Many of the poems are obviously drawn from the experiences of multiple girls and I am sure would be best understood if the various lines were said by different girls to build a story.

Randomly, one selection from The Vagina Monologues is included - "My Short Skirt." It's an excellent poem and definitely worthy of inclusion considering how young women are often shamed for their fashion choices, it was just slightly distracting for me as I was reading the poem and thinking "I've heard this before..." (Freshman year of college I performed in The Vagina Monologues. Unfortunately I didn't do "My Short Skirt." I got to put on my best British accent and perform "The Vagina Workshop")

This should be considered mandatory reading for every teenage girl - even teenage boys would benefit from some of these (like the aforementioned "Short Skirt"). While much of the book is about body image and sexuality, there are lots of other topics too - like child labor, from the girl who works in a Chinese factory assembling Barbies, and dating violence, like in the letter to Rihanna penned by a girl in her own abusive relationship but hasn't left, like Rihanna did. It's an excellent assortment of points of view, arranged well so you aren't overwhelmed by dark and depressing themes before a more lighthearted piece pops up.



Nonfiction Monday is hosted this week by the Book Nosher. Be sure to check out all the other great nonfiction books highlighted today!

Review: The Lighter Side of Life and Death by C.K. Kelly Martin

Found via: Good Books & Wine

Books about relationship and sexuality often look at first love from the girl's point of view, carrying on the old trope that girls are interested in love and boys are interested in sex. So after reading April's review about this "gripping portrayal of growing up and burgeoning sexuality for a teenage boy, my curiosity was definitely piqued!

Mason Rice, 16, is on top of the world. The school play has just finished, emotions are riding high for everyone, and on the night of the cast party he sleeps with one of his best friends, Kat. Life is perfect, right?

Until school on Monday when Kat starts avoiding him. She won't return his calls and eventually confronts him in the hallway, telling him it didn't mean anything and they should just forget it ever happened. Oh, and his other best friend, Jamie, isn't too happy either - he had a crush on Kat and is convinced the whole evening must have been less-than-consensual with the way Kat is acting.

With his feelings hurt and ego a little bruised, life at home isn't any easier, as his dad's girlfriend and her two kids are moving into their house. With home no longer a refuge and his two best friends not talking to him, Mason befriends a friend of his new step-aunt - Colette. Beautiful, witty - and 23 years old. As Mason tries to forget the broken  heart Kat left him with, he dives into the forbidden with Colette, determined to enjoy this relationship for as long as it lasts.

It was interesting to see a slight role reversal between Mason and Kat here - Mason is the one who is convinced their sleeping together means he and Kat can finally have a relationship, while Kat is the one saying he should forget about it. However, it's only a slight reversal because it becomes pretty clear that for Kat the evening did mean something; she just doesn't want to face what has changed.

Mason and Colette's relationship on the other hand is pretty hot. They're definitely in a weird place - 16 years old is definitely underage, but Mason doesn't seem to be coerced into the relationship, and initially pursues Colette. Of course, she could have/should have said no, but it's certainly not presented as a weird abusive relationship. Colette isn't in a position of power over Mason (not a teacher, coach or even close family friend), so there's no weird power dynamics in play, either. On the other hand, as an adult it's also a little weird to read the relatively explicit sex scenes between the two, because in the back of my head I'm going "He's 16! I don't care how hot he is!"

This is a book that expects some maturity from its readers, and I absolutely love it for that. The book presents several relationships that are outside of the teen romance norm, and doesn't pass judgment on any of them. It's up to the reader to interpret these relationships as healthy/unhealthy, positive/negative or somewhere in between. This is the type of book that is considered "dangerous" by some adults because it doesn't present a black and white view of the world - and that's exactly why books like this need to continue to be written.

Review: Sellout by Ebony Joy Wilkins

Found via: Reading in Color

I've said it before and I'll say it again: my social justice weak points are gender, sexual orientation, race and class. When a book hits any one of those sweet spots, I give it at least a second glance. Hit two or more, and its assured a spot on my to-read list. I've been waiting on this one since April, when Ari highlighted it as her Waiting on Wednesday title, since it looked like it was going to squarely hit race and class head on.

NaTasha is the only Black girl in her affluent New Jersey suburb. She spends a week every summer with her grandmother in Harlem, but otherwise NaTasha spends all of her time with her white girlfriends, doing things like silly contests to see whose hair grows the longest during the school year - a contest NaTasha knows she can't win with her nappy hair, even if her mom irons it straight regularly.

After a ballet recital where NaTasha's attempts to fit in with her white peers have disastrous results, her grandmother, Tilly, decides a mere week in Harlem isn't enough. NaTasha is going to spend most of her summer in the city, working with her grandmother at Amber's Place, a community center for troubled girls up in the Bronx.

After her first day at Amber's Place, NaTasha is sure she won't fit in with these girls any better than the white girls back home. For while these girls have brown skin, they immediately peg NaTasha as a sellout - someone who acts white and thinks she's better than her Black peers. But NaTasha decides to stick it out a bit longer, out of respect to Tilly, and hopes that sooner rather than later she really will find herself.

I totally understood Tilly's desire for NaTasha to get in touch with her roots. Her actions at the ballet recital (weaving scarves into her hair to give the illusion of a hair bun) indicate on some level that she's embarrassed or ashamed of who she is. Some time up in Harlem could do her some real good, showing her how other African American women love and accept the way they look. However, making her volunteer at Amber's Place really came out of nowhere. What is NaTasha supposed to learn from girls that have been abused, and even continue to abuse themselves? And then making NaTasha take part in the activities like she was just another girl - of course she and the girls are going to clash! To them, NaTasha doesn't have a real problem in the world. And in some ways, I felt that sending her to Amber's Place did make light of NaTasha's problems - they are rather "first world" problems (you need to feel that your basic needs are being met - food, shelter, safety - before you can start worrying about your identity and fitting in socially), but that doesn't make them any less real for NaTasha.


The other girls at Amber's Place, however, are totally and heartbreakingly real. Each of them has a story to tell, and especially Shaunda's and Monique's will make you rage at the injustices of the world that two otherwise bright young women would feel they are deserving of anything less than love and respect. Quiana, NaTasha's primary tormentor, also has a story to tell, making her anger perfectly understandable.


Once NaTasha gets to Harlem, the story really picks up and I enjoyed it - it's just the framing device, getting NaTasha into Harlem and the Bronx, falls a little flat and could have been handled with much more depth.