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!

Review: When the Stars Go Blue by Caridad Ferrer

Found via: Ari at Reading in Color

Ari has been raving about this book for months - I'm so glad I could finally get my hands on it! My reaction (spoiler alert!) isn't quite as enthusiastic as hers, but I still found it to be a worthwhile read.

Soledad Reyes knows nothing but dance. Since she first set foot in the ballet studio as a child, she's known she wants to live life on the stage - preferably as a ballerina, even though physically she's quite different from ballerina norms. But when she starts a passionate romance with Jonathan, a guy who's as passionate about music as she is about dance, Soledad wants to give his type of performance a try for a summer, and joins the exhausting and exhilarating world of competitive drum and bugle corp. The local group is putting on an ambitious adaptation of Carmen, and Soledad will be perfect for the title role.

As Soledad is drawn deeper into the drum and bugle corp, and into her relationship with Jonathan, Soledad is tired but happy. Until a handsome Spanish soccer player arrives and along with his team seems to be following Soledad's team from county fair to county fair, and Soledad's summer begins to have some eerie parallels to the opera she's starring in.

In the midst of this novel, I absolutely could not put this thing down. I was totally absorbed from page one. For one thing, Ferrer has nailed the descriptions of the thrill of performing. I was never much of a dancer, but I did musical theater for most of my life, so I definitely got Soledad's passion and need to be performing. I also liked how the romance doesn't take much time to heat up - there's no extended, frustrating flirtation here. Once Soledad and Jonathan know how the other one feels it starts getting steamy.

All through Soledad's passionate affair with Jonathan and the new world of drum and bugle corp performance, I was right there with her, soaring with her highs and absolutely crushed with her lows. Thrilled with the innocent flirtations of the handsome Spanish soccer player and crushed every time something worked to keep Soledad and Jonathan apart.

But when I finished the book, and started to reflect...it just didn't hold up. While Ferrer hits all of the emotional beats just right, and does an excellent job of describing those emotions, there are moments of more tangible actions where the description is lacking. Like I'm still not sure I totally get how drum and bugle corp works - when Jonathan shows Soledad a DVD of a previous performance, Ferrer does an excellent job of describing Soledad's emotions, to the point of not really describing what she's actually seeing!

I was also really uncomfortable Jonathan's behavior, and Soledad's overall reactions to it. Ferrer does an amazing job of showing how a passionate relationship can quickly slip into an emotionally dangerous one, but I felt Soledad was way too willing to forgive and rationalize Jonathan's behavior in the end - and I can't help but feel in the end she's setting herself up to be hurt all over again. She tells us how her new relationship has and will be different - but I never saw any clear signs that it will be.

I wasn't familiar with Carmen going into the book, and the story of the opera is also never really fleshed out, just like the world of drum and bugle corp. However when I looked up the opera on Wikipedia, it looks like Ferrer has done an amazing job weaving in parallels between Soledad's and Carmen's stories.

But there was also a lot to like here, too. I loved Soledad's confidence in her body, even as she acknowledges she's physically different from ballerina norms. Her relationship with Mamacita is beautiful, and while her dance partner Raj flirts with some fabulous stereotypes, I did like that his presence illustrated that there was some diversity regarding sexual orientation in the all-male corp, and gave Soledad someone to talk about boys with in a story that has only three female characters.

There are some strong feminist moments in here that had me cheering early on - Soledad's confidence in her body and sexuality, as well as Taz's encouragement of a little girl who dreams of playing soccer (I'll admit, I teared up a little. I'm a sucker for encouraging girls to follow their dreams!) were big bonuses. And of course, there's the novelty of getting a book about a young woman of color where her ethnic background is an integral part of her character but not the focus of the story. But ultimately the reactions to Jonathan in the end left me feeling on the fence overall. This is an excellent romance in multiple senses of the word - including the cliche of the genre that you shouldn't think too hard about it. Accept that it's hot and sexy and just go with the flow.

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: The Red Umbrella by Christina Diaz Gonzalez

No new nonfiction books made it to the library for me last week - well, no new YA. I have a big, serious look at whether gender differences actually exist in the brain, but I'm undecided as to whether that will get a review on the blog. I also finally got my hands on A Family of Readers, which I plan on tweeting like Natasha did.

In the meantime, to satisfy any beginning-of-the-week cravings for facts, I'm going with a historical fiction book.

It's been two years since the Cuban revolution, and while Lucia generally supports the revolution, it's not her top concern. There's school and parties to attend and a cute boy to flirt with before he goes off to do his part for the revolution, educating underprivileged children in rural areas of Cuba.

And then the soldiers come to town. Freedoms are stripped away, and people disappear. Lucia's parents want her to stay as far away from anything to do with the revolution as possible, but that brings suspicions of anti-communism. Even Lucia's best friend seems to be suspicious of Lucia's parents. To protect Lucia and her little brother, her parents decide the safest place for the children would be away from Cuba - in the United States.

Moving from a beautiful island to landlocked Nebraska is only one change Lucia and Frankie have to adapt to. A new language, new clothes, a whole new way of life are waiting for Lucia in America. While at first she was sure this was going to be a short trip - the equivalent of an exotic summer vacation, perhaps - Lucia begins to wonder if she'll ever see her parents, or her beloved Cuba, again.

Operation Pedro Pan was a real movement in the 1960s, and Gonzalez's author's notes explain. Children were sent from Cuba to live in orphanages or foster families in the US in order to protect them from Castro's regime. This need for protection is illustrated by Lucia's best friend Ivette, who joins the revolution whole-heartedly and repeatedly chastises Lucia for not joining her. It's chilling for someone who has only known the freedoms of the US to read Ivette's railing against capitalism.

I absolutely loved the foster family Lucia and Frankie end up with. Maybe I've read about too many evil stepmothers recently, but it was such a relief to read about a US family that makes a real effort to understand another culture and help the kids out in any way that's practical. Truly wonderful family dynamics there.

This week marks the end of Hispanic Heritage month, and while it's more coincidence than anything that I'm reviewing this title now, it's great timing because this is about a little known bit of Cuban heritage in the US.

Sci-Fi Friday Review: Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi

Found via: Publisher's Weekly 4/19




You all know that I'm a sucker for science fiction, especially when it falls into the dystopian camp. I'm also a huge fan of books that bring in strong and interesting non-white characters (okay, I prefer my white characters to be interesting as well, but characters of color are harder to find!). Ship Breaker is one of the few books that combines both of those passions into an awesome story.

17 year old Nailer has spent his whole life living on the Gulf coast, working on the crews that break down the ancient oil rigs and shipwrecked boats that were abandoned as fossil fuels were exhausted and the climate changed so radically the coast began suffering through Category 6 hurricanes - aka City Killers. It's a rough and tumble life for everyone, but perhaps a little more so for Nailer who lives with his alcoholic father who isn't afraid to re-live his glory days as a wrestler by taking out his frustrations on his son.

Everyone on the crews dreams of making like Lucky Strike, the former crew member who found a secret oil deposit and was able to smuggle enough out to buy his way off the crew and set up a comfortable life for himself. Nailer thinks he's found his shot with the discovery of a modern and swanky clipper ship wrecked on the shore, filled with silver and gold and copper and, unexpectedly, a survivor - a young woman. Nailer and his friends are tempted to kill the girl and claim the boat as salvage, but ultimately Nailer decides to spare Nita after she promises there'll be a handsome reward for her safe return.

What Nita failed to mention is her rich father isn't the only one looking for her. Trouble is brewing in her father's industry, and a former colleague has pursued Nita across the Gulf, hoping to use her as a hostage. Without Nailer's help, she'll never reach safety. With the promise of adventure and a better life for himself and his friends, Nailer agrees to help, setting in motion an adventure that takes him from the ravaged Gulf to the ruins of New Orleans and out onto the ocean as he's always dreamed.

Bacigalupi is a rising star in science fiction right now, having just won the 2010 Nebula Award for his 2009 adult novel. So Ship Breaker continues the trend of adult writers turning towards the YA market, but after reading this one I'm happy to welcome Bacigalupi into the YA field. This is a tightly crafted adventure story, with a setting that feels all the more timely in the aftermath of the Gulf oil spill (boo, hiss). I also found an interview with Bacigalupi that's interesting to read in light of the New Yorker article on YA dystopias. The New Yorker notes that a lot of YA dystopias don't truly work as social commentary like 1984 and Brave New World do because teenagers can't do anything to change their place. Bacigalupi, however, takes a different tack, saying "Adult readers nod their heads like a Chihuahua (bobble head) on a dashboard and say, 'Wow, that's really deep.' Then they get in their car and drive to work again. But with young people, they actually still have a chance to make better decisions than we made." Hopefully that means he plans on writing more YA!


The diverse cast is definitely one of the strengths of this novel. Not only are most of the characters not-white (specifically Nailer is Latino and Nita is Indian), but both men and women, boys and girls are part of the action. Nita starts off physically frail, but she's clearly clever and is a fast learner so she can earn the respect of Nailer and his crew who've known nothing but hard labor. Sadna, the leader of Nailer's crew, is a strong and imposing woman who has clawed her way up the ranks. At least in the shanty town, there's no difference between races or gender, it's all about how you can contribute and earn your keep.


When Nita arrives on the scene, class also comes to the forefront of the story as it becomes apparent that the entire world isn't in shambles like the Gulf coast is. Farther inland there are working cities with industries and infrastructure going strong. The only way those cities continue to thrive, however, is by exploiting people like Nailer to salvage every last resource from the wreckage people like us left behind.

Review: Last Night I Sang to the Monster by Benjamin Alire Sáenz

Found via: Best Fiction for Young Adults 2011 nominations



While I have mixed feelings about the existence of the new BFYA list, one thing I am very positive about is Last Night I Sang to the Monster deserves to be on all sorts of "best of" lists. It's nominated for the Nerds Heart YA contest and I hope it goes far! This is definitely a title that needs more exposure.



At 18 years old, Zach is already in rehab for alcoholism. He was brought in for treatment after suffering severe alcohol poisoning, and claims to not remember what happened just before his last drinking binge. He knows it was bad, and remembering just hurts too much. Instead he drifts through the program, remaining silent most of the time, only opening up occasionally to his roommate Rafael. Rafael is also an alcoholic, but is about old enough to be Zach's father, and is much more at peace with the rehab program than Zach is.

As Zach makes his way through the rehabilitation program in fits and starts, we learn about his life before rehab - living with a brother with anger issues and an alcoholic father who hid bottles of booze where Zach could easily find them. Adam, Zach's ever-patient therapist, helps guide Zach through his journey, but Zach is the one who must choose to be sober, and in rehab there are no easy answers.

I have so much love for everything that's going on in this book. While there are several colorful supporting characters, none of them fall into outlandish stereotype territory. Every patient clearly has addiction issues, but they are all handling sobriety in their own ways. Some have come to the center voluntarily like Rafael, but others are there on court order and plan on staying just long enough to avoid jail time before returning to their old ways.

This is also an extremely chatty novel. Zach spends a lot of time in his own head and fills the narrative with vocal tics like well, so, look and okay. It's never enough to become annoying, and it definitely adds a sense of intimacy to this story. The casual tone makes it feel very raw and immediate, like we really are in Zach's head and he hasn't had time to censor or edit himself.

One thing that really impressed me about this novel is that even though most of the cast is male, there is a lot of crying going on. Zach cries with some frequency, as do other patients and doctors. But what's striking about all of these tears is no one is torn down for it. No one is called a fag or is told that he's crying like a girl - Zach doesn't even think these things about himself. Considering how men are so often socialized to see emotions, especially ones that lead to crying, as un-manly, I thought this was remarkable. Also, Zach is Latino, and Latino cultures are often portrayed as steeped in machismo that would also discourage tears. It's always a positive thing to see difficult emotions and emotional reactions handled respectfully and realistically.

I was also impressed by Zach's journey in rehab. Without giving too much away, I can safely say that Zach's road to recovery isn't so much a clear path as it is a roller coaster. He doesn't progressively get better - at least not obviously. His story is much more along the lines of "one step forward, two steps back." While sometimes it's frustrating to see Zach slip backwards in some way, it's also great to a complex look at alcoholism and recovery.

Speaking of complex, after checking out Last Night I Sang to the Monster, I recommend checking out Liz B's list at Teacozy Beyond Pap Finn for other YA novels where "an alcoholic (including recovering alcoholic) is portrayed as something other than the evil, abusive person." A great list!

Review: Efrain's Secret by Sofia Quintero

Found via: Publisher's Weekly 3/15

I've been dying to post about this one for almost a week now. I discussed some of it with Ari of Reading in Color on Twitter after she finished, but I wanted to get my Nerds Heart YA decision up first so I could make some comparisons between The World is Mine and this, which I coincidentally read shortly after.

Efrain has one goal in life: to be accepted into an Ivy League school. He knows it's an uphill battle: he has no college fund; he's Latino; and even though he's poised to be Valedictorian at his Bronx high school, does class rank really matter when your school doesn't even offer calculus? But the final nail in the coffin appears to come in the form of his SAT score - 1650, far below the average score for Harvard's incoming Freshmen. With a mother that works around the clock just to keep a roof over his and his little sister's heads and a deadbeat dad who moved in down the street with his mistress, Efrain feels like he's at a dead end. Until his old friend Nestor, a high school drop out and current drug peddler, offers to hook Efrain up with a job like his. It's hard work, long hours, and fraught with danger from the cops and rival dealers, but the cash is tax free and it's all for the noble goal of escaping epidemic poverty, so it's okay, right?

Complicating Efrain's life even more are his relationships with his best friend Chingy and potential girlfriend Candace, a survivor of Hurricane Katrina with an overprotective mother. Efrain knows neither would approve of where he's getting his cash, and chooses to keep both in the dark, hoping to keep his secret until he has enough cash to pay for an SAT prep course, re-take the test, and start paying for college with the help of loans. But once he starts peddling drugs, working up from marijuana to the harder stuff, will it really be that easy to get out?

Oh Efrain, Efrain, Efrain. So many times I just wanted to grab him by the shoulders and tell him that no matter how daunting life seemed, selling drugs just wasn't the way to solve his problems. Of course, then there wouldn't be much of a story, would there? Quintero keeps this from falling into a re-hash of an after-school special with dynamic dialog and engaging characters. Nestor, who paves the way for Efrain to join him in the drug peddling business, is an absolutely terrific character. He's neither a stereotypical street kid nor a thug with a heart of gold - rather he's somewhere realistically in between. He alternates between being goofy and serious, a buddy to Efrain and a no-nonsense dealer. I almost want a book about Nestor's story!

The comparison I wanted to make between this and The World is Mine all comes down to the dialog. There are a lot of differences between these two books, but one major thing they have in common is the use of lots of slang. However, The World is Mine called a lot of attention to the slang by interpreting it for the audience, which drew me out of the story constantly and seemed to make it clear the book wasn't actually intended for anyone who might really speak that way. Efrain's Secret, in contrast, hardly translates anything at all. There are even short bursts of dialog in Spanish that go untranslated for an English-speaking audience. Since I speak about three words of Spanish, I had to rely on the context and character reactions to even have a clue what was going on, but it really added another layer of authenticity to the story. It reminded me of one of the things I loved best about the early seasons of Lost, when parts of Jin and Sun's conversations in Korean would go un-sub-titled. It was a great storytelling device then, and it works just as well in Efrain's Secret.

Efrain's Secret is a solid story that jumps up a notch on the basis of great characters and an engaging and immersive writing style.

Nerds Heart YA Discussion: The World is Mine by Lyah B. LeFlore

Today's the big day, the first day results are being posted for the first round of the Nerds Heart YA tournament, all about underrepresented, diverse YA books. I had the pleasure of judging this round with Lorin of Arch Thinking, pitting The World is Mine against Donut Days by Laura Zielin. Continue reading for our discussion about The World is Mine, then continue on to Arch Thinking for our Donut Days discussion. At noon Eastern time we'll post our comparison of the two books and declare a final winner!

Angela

Let's start by talking about The World is Mine. I liked the variety of characters in the book and how we got to spend a little bit of time in everyone's head and see what was important to them and why they were in on Blue's venture. I also really, really liked seeing a book where the majority of the characters are non-white, but they aren't all down-on-their-luck drug dealers or anything. There's a variety of socio-economic statuses, a variety of academic success, etc.  

However, I have to admit that the slang really, really irritated me. Not the presence of it, but the way the author had to *explain* it to us. I lost track of how many times a slang word was followed by "which in our world means..." And while I liked the inclusion of the rap/hip hop lyrics at the beginning of the chapters, they were integrated awkwardly into the text: "Like Kanye's famous line, Mo' money mo' problems." The grammar felt really artificial there. Overall it felt like the book wasn't written for teens who are living lives like Blue and his friends, but for the kids in the suburbs who want to mimic the "urban lifestyle."

I was also totally frustrated by the cliffhanger ending. I felt like there was absolutely no resolution for any of the plot threads.

Lorin

The ending! I was so annoyed when I read the last page. It really bugs me when books don't even pretend to be anything more than a way to make you buy the next book.

I think you hit the nail on the head regarding the audience for this book. And I think this made the dialogue feel stilted. Which was too bad because I really liked most of the characters. It helped that we spent time with many of them, which I agree that I liked. But I was also charmed by some of the other characters, like Blue's dad and Whiteboy's landlady. They came across as really genuine people whose problems I care about. Which brings me back to the ending - I guess it's a good thing that I want to know what happens next, but I think the author has lost my trust. If every book is a cliffhanger, I'm going to get jaded and stop caring.

Angela

I kept comparing the cliffhanger ending to the endings of Hunger Games and Catching Fire in my head, only because those are the two biggest cliffhangers I've seen recently. Those worked because something major was resolved - IE, the titular Hunger Games, but in the last few pages, a *new* twist was added, so you not only felt one story was completed, but there was another one to look forward to. I wanted something resolved - a truly successful party, the issue of  Mamie's track - so I had a complete story to reflect on before building anticipation for the next story.

Lorin 

The thing I thought about a lot when I read this book was how most of Blue's problems were of his own making. Some weren't (like the issue about college) but the problems with Collin and Mamie were. I get that it's a personality flaw but I did want to scold the boy half the time. I just wish he had been a little more self-aware.  

Angela

Blue...I kinda wanted to kick him in the face sometimes. He was totally dismissive of and just a little bit sexist towards Mamie. The sexism came in for me because he seemed unable to refer to her without labeling her as the *girl* DJ. It was irritating because while I can handle a flawed protagonist (in fact, the best ones are far from perfect), he had some glaring personality flaws that made him downright unlikeable sometimes. His problems with Collin seemed to mostly stem from an inability to listen - which I totally bought because Blue was caught up in his big dreams and who wants to listen to reality then?! But he was rather vile about Mamie, and was creeping me out a bit towards the end when he was wondering how long Jade was "gonna make a brother wait." Independently, that bit with Jade would just be typical male posturing, but combined with the Mamie issues it was clear Blue's got some messed up issues with women.  

Lorin

I hadn't really picked up on Blue's women issues until you pointed it out, but I definitely see what you mean. (Interestingly, his mom isn't really a developed character in the book - Collin's off-screen mom is more fully developed. I wonder if the author will make more of this in her next installment.) Mostly though, I just thought his ego was bigger than he was - and from what I've heard of his favorite role model, Diddy, that's probably pretty accurate.

Summary:

-     Good variety of characters

-     Interesting structure

-     Unsympathetic main character (but sympathetic supporting characters)

-     Annoying cliffhanger ending

Remember: check out Arch Thinking for our Donut Days thoughts, then come back at noon for our comparison and final decision!

Review: Gringolandia by Lyn Miller-Lachmann

Found via: the author. Review copy received from the author

Somehow Gringolandia never made it onto my radar last year, even though it made the 2010 BBYA list. It's also now in the running for the Nerds Heart YA tournament (meaning I've now read 10 of the 32 nominated titles, lol). So when Lyn Miller-Lachman contacted me to ask if I wanted to review it (also graciously offering to send a copy to me since she knew my local library had never been able to get it) I was excited and happy to accept!

In October 1980, young Daniel Aguilar wakes up in the middle of the night to the sounds of soldiers - not uncommon in Pinochet's Chile, but this time they're inside his apartment, looking for his father, Marcelo. When they pull his father from hiding, they make Daniel watch as they deliver a bloody beating before carting the man away to prison.

Six years later, Daniel is now a junior in high school in Wisconsin. His mother escaped Chile with him and his sister in tow and have made a new life for themselves in Gringolandia, ironically the country that empowered the dictator responsible for Marcelo's imprisonment. Daniel's new life includes reggae music, playing Latin American songs in church, and dating the pastor's daughter, Courtney. Life is turned upside down, however, with the sudden news that Marcelo's been freed and will be joining his family in the United States.

Six years in prison have left Marcelo a changed man - he was tortured and brutalized in prison, leaving half of his body partially paralyzed. He drinks to excess, alternately ignoring and berating his family. Before his imprisonment he was a great writer, but now every word is a struggle. He desperately wants to continue writing, telling his story and the stories of his fellow prisoners to encourage people to fight to remove Pinochet from power, but his injuries make it nearly impossible - until Courtney steps in. An AP Spanish student preparing to go to college in the fall, she is captivated by Marcelo's story and works tirelessly to re-write his stories and translate them into English. Daniel isn't sure what to think of his girlfriend becoming so involved in his father's life, but if it makes his father happy, Daniel will go along with it, hoping that the work will help heal his father and open up the opportunity for a real relationship again.

Once again, here's an historical fiction novel highlighting an aspect of history I knew next to nothing about. An author's note in the beginning gives the background on the dictator Pinochet's rise to power (Chile's elected president in 1970 was a socialist, which of course the US didn't like, so they supported a coup in '73 that brought in Pinochet) and the novel itself covers some of Marcelo's imprisonment and torture as well as efforts in the United States to free him and other political prisoners before finally giving us a brief look at life in Chile after Pinochet.

I found myself of two minds about this book. The story is absolutely compelling and fascinating and horrifying - but I never connected with Daniel or Courtney (who narrates a portion in the middle). They never really sounded like teenagers, I suppose, though they certainly had the impulsive actions of teenagers.

Also, there was a minor bit about Courtney that came up a couple of times that, as a native of Michigan, drove me up a wall. I have never heard of people in Michigan taking French in high school because we're "so close" to Canada. Michigan borders Ontario, which speaks English - it's when you get closer to Quebec that you have to start thinking of speaking French, and there's roughly 600 miles between Bloomfield Hills, MI (where Courtney is originally from) and Montreal, Quebec. I can't find a comprehensive biography of Miller-Lachmann, so I don't know if she grew up in Michigan and this was how people chose a high school language back when she lived here, or if it was conjecture, or what. But really, that's the only specific criticism I have here - and she gets kudos for realizing that in Wisconsin they drink pop :-)

So while the bit about French was annoying, and the characters weren't the most relateable I've read about, the compelling story kept me going forward and I can definitely appreciate the positive reviews and accolades this has received so far. I'll definitely be interested to see how far this progresses in the Nerds Heart YA tournament!

Tonight I'm planning on seeing Lyn Miller-Lachmann speak with Peter Marion and Andrew Xiu Fukuda at the Battery Park City library where they will be speaking about the real crimes that inspired their books. I can't wait!

Double Review: Firefly Letters by Margarita Engle and Crossing Stones by Helen Frost

Found via: The Amelia Bloomer Project

As you've no doubt heard by now, April is National Poetry Month. Which means nothing to me, since my relationship to poetry has been well documented in other places on this blog. But I happened to read two books this month that not only share some thematic qualities, but were written totally in verse. Also, I have finally figured out what it takes to get me to like your verse novel. But that's the sort of revelation best left for the end (I am such a tease!)

Margarita Engle definitely has her niche: write books about little known parts of Cuba's history in poetry format. Last year I reviewed (and was underwhelmed by) Tropical Secrets, about Holocaust survivors taking refuge in Cuba. While I wasn't a fan of that book, I wanted to take a chance on Firefly Letters because it was described as a suffrage story, about Swedish suffragist Fredrika Bremer's 1851 trip to Cuba. Fredrika was historically accompanied by a slave, Cecilia, who was the only one in the area who spoke English well enough to act as a translator. Fredrika and Cecilia are two of our narrators, each contributing poems about her experiences in Cuba, one as a foreign tourist and the other as a teenage, pregnant slave. The third character is the fictional Elena, the privileged daughter of the family that owns Cecilia and is playing host to Fredrika for the three months of her stay.

Cecilia and Fredrika have the more active roles, as wealthy women and girls were expected to stay home. So Fredrika's and Cecilia's poems are about traveling the countryside and meeting slaves, while Elena's poems are limited to being observations about the world around her and introspective bits about how meeting Fredrika, a woman with so much more freedom than she has, is changing her thoughts and opinions.

Crossing Stones is another multi-narrator bit of historical fiction, this time 1917 in Michigan on the eve of the first World War. The three narrators are Muriel, strong-willed and outspoken; Ollie, her brother who is desperate to grow up; and Emma, next door neighbor, Muriel's friend, and Ollie's love-interest (who shares the attraction). This is a much broader story than Firefly Letters, as through Ollie's eyes we see some of the horrors of trench warfare in Europe during the war. The three narrators share their hopes and dreams and conflicts about the war, while also going through the more mundane tasks of rural Michigan life. The war leaves its scars on both families, and Muriel's family also has to deal with her aunt running off to Washington D.C. to protest in front of the White House, demanding suffrage for women, despite the war that's going on.

I have to say, that describing Firefly Letters as a suffrage book is totally misleading. While I have no doubt that the historical Fredricka Bremer was a suffragist, the focus of the story is more on her work as an abolitionist. Some very basic women's rights are mentioned, ones that are even more basic than the vote, but suffrage isn't ever brought up, which was greatly disappointing.

Firefly Letters also suffers from an extremely simplistic format. It's the exact same format used in Tropical Secrets where every poem uses a standardized stanza format and varies little in length, so you really have to rely on the names at the beginning of the poem to know who is speaking. Crossing Stones uses different styles of poetry as well as shaping the poems to make them distinct: Muriel's poems are free-verse and zig-zag across the page, while Ollie's and Emma's poems are "cupped-hand" sonnets that are roughly circular, giving them an additional connection outside of the growing relationship described in their poems.

While I feel Crossing Stones is the stronger of the two books on most counts, it still left me wanting a little bit more. When Muriel visits DC to see her aunt, I wanted loads more description, since I know a bit about what a dangerous time it was to be a suffragist at the time (unlike today, people didn't protest in front of the White House, so protesters were rare to begin with, let alone women protesters. And then there was the feeling that mere women shouldn't be questioning the president during a time of war). But I think I've figured out when poetry novels work for me.

Last year I loved Because I Am Furniture, an intense story of abuse. After reading the two historical verse novels back to back, I figured out that Because I Am Furniture worked for me because it's a very personal story. It's all about Anke's feelings and emotions. In Firefly Letters and Crossing Stones, not only do we have to learn the backgrounds of multiple characters, but historical settings need to be described as well, and these settings don't always fit neatly into the first person poem structure, leaving me wanting to know more, more, more. So now I think I can approach future verse novels with more confidence - for historical settings, I'm going to need a vested interest in the subject in order to stay interested despite the format (a la Crossing Stones), otherwise I'm going to start skipping them.

Review: This World We Live In by Susan Beth Pfeffer

I read this one the same day that the volcano started wreaking havoc with travelers around the world. It was a total coincidence, I swear!

Such is just one of the disasters that has happened in Susan Beth Pfeffer's trilogy that started with Life as We Knew It and continued in The Dead and the Gone (both of which were among my favorite books read in 2008). To re-cap briefly: an asteroid hit the moon, knocking it out of its standard orbit and moving it much closer to Earth. Cue instant environmental chaos: tidal waves wipe out coastal cities (in The Dead and the Gone I learned that my neighborhood in Queens would have most likely been wiped out immediately), earthquakes strike and the darn volcanoes start going off constantly. Millions die instantly, and who knows how many thousands more die as electricity, heat, and food are in short supply. Global warming is no longer an issue - with all of the ash in the atmosphere a new ice age settles across the globe, where in the middle of summer in Pennsylvania they're happy for days of a warm 60 degrees Fahrenheit. The first book is told through Miranda's diary entries in Pennsylvania; the second book covers roughly the same period of time, but follows Alex and his two sisters in New York City. This World We Live In is set a year after the asteroid's impact and we're back following Miranda through her diary entries.

A sense of civilization has returned for Miranda, her mom, and her two brothers. They're still getting canned food from city hall. They're getting electricity for a few hours every day, and spring is on the way, which will hopefully mean warmer days. But the quartet expands rapidly, first as her oldest brother brings a girl home along with a big haul of fish, and then as Miranda's dad returns, with his wife and new baby, and three friends from a refugee camp: Charlie and Alex and his little sister Julie, two of the stars of The Dead and the Gone.

It's tough going from a family of four to a group of 11 almost over night. Food rations are increasingly scarce and privacy - already rare when it was just Miranda, her mom and her brothers - is a thing of the past. To make it all the more frustrating, Miranda and Alex can't seem to stand each other. He's quiet and stand-offish, intent on taking Julie to a convent despite her wishes to the contrary. He doesn't want to take Miranda's advice on anything - he doesn't seem to want to be around people at all. But in this new world they live in, Alex and Miranda can't afford to be at each other's throats constantly and learn to first like, and then perhaps even love each other, even as the future is as uncertain as ever, and tragedy lurks around every corner.

I've said before that diary-style stories can really throw me off, but for some reason I had absolutely no problem with the diary entries here. I don't know if this is because Pfeffer has some magic tricks up her sleeve, or if I was just so excited to get back into this devastated world she's created. In books like the Carbon Diaries series, the natural disasters build gradually over time, but here the change is immediate and devastating and reading about the short- and long-term survival of Miranda and her family is just gripping.

The last two books were necessarily light on the romance since the main characters interacted with few people outside of their families (no Flowers in the Attic storylines here!), but the romance got turned up to 11 in this one, first with Matt and then Miranda and Alex falling head over heels in love almost immediately upon laying eyes upon someone of the opposite sex. While I found it totally believable (it's the end of the world, of course you're going to go looking for connections where you can find them!), I was kind of waiting for the adults to butt in and try to get the kids to act rationally. For example, Miranda's mother can be extremely short tempered and clearly treats Miranda differently than her brothers post-asteroid (this was touched on more in The Dead and the Gone than Life as We Knew It, but the streets are dangerous places for girls alone, and as we've seen in post-earthquake Haiti, natural disasters make areas doubly unsafe for women and girls) yet she never has a real problem with Miranda melodramatically declaring her love for Alex. I got annoyed with the two of them talking about their deep and spiritual love; I found it hard to believe Miranda's practical and short-tempered mother having much of a stomach for it, either.

But really? That's my only critique. Even when she's being whiny or melodramatic, I love reading about Miranda and I'm sad this is the conclusion of the trilogy. Pfeffer has created an intensely compelling world, and even if the Earth didn't seem to be in the middle of heightened seismic activity, I would still love reading this. I think this is another early add to my best of 2010 list.

Review: Marcelo in the Real World by Francisco X. Stork

Winner: 2010 Schneider Family Book Award

I've been hearing wonderful things about Marcelo in the Real World for months. Everyone seems to love it. Lots of people were saying it was going to win the Printz (and then were stunned when it didn't even get an honor). But I held back. Because everyone was describing this as a book about an autistic kid, and that's a touchy subject for me; if you don't get the description of autism right I'll immediately shut the book and walk away. It's a subject that hits too close to home for me so I'm wary about what I'll pick up just to save myself the stress.

It turns out people just need to be a lot more accurate in their descriptions of Marcelo. He is not autistic; he hasn't even been diagnosed with Asperger syndrome. Instead he's on the autism spectrum in an unidentifiable way. This seemed to me an excellent way to present Marcelo: not only does it highlight the wide variety of ways that autism can present itself, but Stork could describe Marcelo and his disabilities however he wanted, and since Marcelo didn't have a medical label attached to him, there was really no wrong way to go.

In case you've been living under a rock, here's the quick story: it's the summer before Marcelo's last year of high school and he's extremely excited to pick up his summer job working with the ponies at Paterson, his private school for children with disabilities. His father, a powerful lawyer, however, has other plans: Marcelo needs to get out into the real world and interact with other people, because he wants to send Marcelo to the public high school for his senior year. The two make a deal: Marcelo will work in the mail room at the law firm for the summer and if he's successful he will get to go back to Paterson for his senior year. If he fails, then it's off to public school. While going through some routine files, Marcelo uncovers a mysterious photograph: a girl with a horribly scarred face. The picture obviously relates to the case his father is currently defending, but is filed to be thrown out rather than be kept with the rest of the evidence. Marcelo and Jasmine, his boss in the mail room, begin an investigation of their own, giving Marcelo some of his greatest real world lessons in friendship, work and doing the right thing.

The law firm setting is absolutely perfect for exploring ideas of right and wrong and the rules of social interaction that Marcelo is supposed to absorb over his summer. The legal system is murky, and in this case Marcelo's father is defending a company that is accused of making dangerous windshields that crack into dangerous shards rather than tiny little pieces in an accident. The company doesn't want to settle any of its lawsuits out of court, but then Marcelo overhears his father discussing a possible settlement with a high-powered lawyer while absolutely refusing a settlement with another lawyer representing a poor client. It's a confusing set of social mores for the best of us, and especially confusing for someone like Marcelo who is used to seeing the world in relatively black and white terms.

Another great/terrible addition is Wendell, the son of the other major partner in the law firm. Wendell is a slimeball. I felt creepy just reading about him. He is the exact opposite of the kind and open Marcelo and I wanted to punch him in the face several times, an excellent quality in the "villain" of the story. So he's great because he functions exactly how the bad guy should, but terrible because he's so creepy and manipulative.

There's a great bit of narration in the novel that describes Marcelo perfectly, after hearing from Jasmine that his father described him as having a cognitive disorder:

He has always insisted that there's nothing wrong with me. The term "cognitive disorder" implies that there is something wrong with the way I think or with the way I perceive reality. I perceive reality just fine. Sometimes I perceive more of reality than others

It's constantly apparent that there is something different about Marcelo. He'll slip into speaking in the third person. He hears what he calls internal music that no one else can sense. He is almost obsessive over studying religion and has to be reminded not to quote scripture or correct or cite quotations that have slipped into idiomatic usage. But this difference is impossible to define. I can see why people have used autistic or Asperger to describe Marcelo, but neither is quite right. I'm very glad I got over my own hesitations and picked this one up. I'm a terrible judge at what should win the major prizes, but I can definitely see why people would be surprised this one didn't get any major recognitions.

Review: Border Crossing by Jessica Lee Anderson

Found via GalleyCat

Books about mental illness can be tricky things. It's easy to go over the top or get overtly sentimental and sad about such a debilitating condition. But I was still curious about Border Crossing, in no small part because it's also about a person of color. "Issue" books often seem to want to focus on only one issue at a time - thus characters default to white. Here, Anderson has created a compelling half-Mexican teen protagonist who is also struggling with the onset of schizophrenia.

Manz, the son of a Mexican immigrant father and a white mother, has never had an easy life. When his parents worked as apple pickers, they were moving constantly. After his father's death, he and his mom settled down, but life didn't get any easier. She's a hard drinker who's had a series of boyfriends. She seems to have settled down somewhat with Tom, but there are still lingering problems - like memories of the child she miscarried several years ago.

Now, Manz wants nothing more than to get out of his small Texas town, populated with lots of people who don't take kindly to having a Mexican, or even a half-Mexican, in their midst. Manz works as a day laborer, along with his friend Jed, in order to earn as much cash as he can towards getting the hell out of Rockhill.

But as the summer wears on, Manz finds himself becoming increasingly paranoid. People are listening to his thoughts and laughing at him behind his back. His friends and family are concerned about him, but the voices tell him they actually want him dead. He begins to wonder if maybe it really would be better if he were dead, and if maybe these were the same thoughts his dad was having before his fatal car crash.

Anderson does a great job weaving Manz's identity as a Mexican-American into his illness - Manz is paranoid immigration officers will think he's actually an illegal immigrant and deport him, or worse. It adds an element of personalization to the story - this could only be Manz's story, no one else's. One thing I would have liked to see, however, is a more immersive experience; even though it's a first person story, it's very clear to the reader when Manz is giving into the paranoia. I would have loved to see the lines between fantasy and reality much more blurred, so that the reader becomes part of Manz's delusions.

There's also a subplot involving Jed's family that just felt unnecessary in the context of the larger story. Jed has an abusive father, and Jed is the only one that stands up to him. But this has no larger influence on the plot; it's not like Jed's father's violent tendencies play into Manz's paranoia or anything. I felt it ultimately detracted from Manz's story.

Back on positive notes, I also like how this doesn't have a pat ending. Manz isn't cured by the end of the book, though he is in treatment. Anderson does a good job of showing that medicines and therapy aren't a magic cure, and that Manz still has a long way to go in the treatment of his illness.

Also positive: not a whitewashed cover!

Good on Milkweed Editions - who sound like very cool publishers. They're a non-profit that "publishes with the intention of making a humane impact on society, in the belief that literature is a transformative art, uniquely able to convey the essential experiences of the human heart and spirit." Which is pretty darn awesome if you ask me.

Review: The Sweetheart of Prosper County by Jill Alexander

Found Via: BBYA 2010 nominations

I've been reading a lot of heavy, serious books lately. Like Into the Wild Nerd Yonder, The Sweetheart of Prosper County provided some lightheartedness to break up the downer books - though this one does have a serious story at its core.

After being made fun of by the school bully at her small Texas town's No Jesus Christmas parade, Austin Gray decides that she needs to be elected as the Sweetheart of Prosper County. If she gets to wear a pretty dress and ride in the parade, no one will be able to make fun of her! Of course, in order to win the crown, she has to join the Future Farmers of America club, and raise a prize-winning farm animal. Enthusiastically supported by her best friend Maribel, and just slightly less so by her overprotective mother, Austin throws herself head first into raising a prize rooster, named Charles Dickens.

When she's not carefully attending to Charles Dickens, Austin is also carefully learning how to grow up and assert her independence under her mother's tight reign. She's been extremely protective of Austin ever since Austin's father died in a car accident one rainy Christmas Eve. Naturally Austin misses her father terribly, but she doesn't understand why his death means she has so fewer freedoms than her peers. And being kept under strict rules isn't exactly conducive to going out with Josh, the cutest boy in the FFA!

I felt there were some uneven spots in this book - the men and boys are a little underdeveloped (I never figured out why the bully was so damn MEAN to Austin - sure she's an easy target since she won't stand up for herself, but he really takes it too far), and the animal-raising plot seems resolved too early so for chapters at a time there's no mention of Charles Dickens, who is so essential to the first half of the book. However, those uneven spots don't take away from the delightful charms of Austin and her relationships with her friend Maribel and her mother. Austin and Maribel are delightfully close, even though the rural town has more than its fair share of racist rednecks who aren't afraid to throw slurs at Maribel. Austin even takes part in Maribel's quinceanera.

It's also always nice to see a functional mother/daughter relationship. Yes, Austin's mother is a bit overprotective, which Austin sometimes resents, but the two of them are also affectionate and there's obviously a deep bond there. They aren't perfect, but they don't hate each other.

Another plus: the book's subtle but ever-present portrayal of religion. A lot of YA books totally gloss over religion - if it's mentioned, the character is either fervently anti-religious, or the whole book is religiously themed. The Sweetheart of Prosper County isn't a religious book, but there are plenty of references to Austin's religion sprinkled throughout the text, mostly through her strategy of "praying the problem:" instead of asking god for a specific outcome, you just pray about what's going on and trust that it will be resolved. Also the quinceanera takes place in Maribel's catholic church, which is very different from anything Austin had experienced before. Though I'm not religious myself, it's nice to see religion acknowledged as part of a character's life.

Thread plug: Yesterday I put out a request for books with explicitly female characters - I'd still love to hear from you and your thoughts in the comments!

Review: Perfect Chemistry by Simone Ekeles

Found Via: A Chaire, a Fireplace & a Tea Cozy

Apparently I'm stuck on "perfection" this week! Unfortunately, that really only extends to the title on this one - unlike Almost Perfect, I wasn't really enamored with this one.

Perfect Chemistry is the age-old story of Romeo & Juliet, with a little bit of Pygmalion thrown in for good measure, only this time there's Brittany Ellis, who is rich and white with parents who expect nothing less than perfection from her, and Alejandro "Alex" Fuentes, who is a Mexican immigrant (at least I'm pretty sure he was born in Mexico - he may be Mexican-American) and a reluctant gang member focused on keeping his family safe in dangerous gang turf. It's the beginning of senior year and a strict chemistry teacher forces Alex and Brittany to sit together, despite the fact the two seem to hate each other. Even though Brittany is initially terrified of Alex, romance blossoms.

When I was reading this book, I tweeted that Alex was creeping me out "like Edward Cullen-style creep out." Because this book seems to suffer from the same delusion as Twilight: boys that are mean to you are, in fact, irrepressibly sexy. Alex constantly sexually harasses Brittany (he says in their introductions in chemistry class that she wants to have sex with him, even though that's demonstrably not the case), he briefly kidnaps her, and is just generally an unpleasant person. Brittany isn't the nicest person at the beginning, either, but since her insults don't go much beyond "Fuck you" and she can't physically force Alex to do anything, she doesn't come off as nearly abusive. The Pygmalion aspect comes from Alex accepting a bet from his buddies that he'll be able to sleep with Brittany, despite the fact that when this bet is made she's happily dating a dreamy boy (that happens to share her & Alex's chemistry class, and assumes the worst of Brittany in the face of Alex's taunts. So yeah, he's not really that dreamy, either).

The positive notes on this novel come when the story strays from the romance and show Brittany and Alex's home lives. Alex is an unwilling rising star in his gang - he only joined to protect his family and is dead set against either of his younger brothers being recruited into the gang. Alex's family life is one of the most compelling parts of the novel, and is utterly heart breaking at times. Brittany's parents, on the other hand, seem to put up the veneer of perfection in order to compensate for Brittany's older sister with cerebral palsy. Another heart breaking family story, as it seems that Brittany is the only one who really looks out for and cares about her sister.

Stories like this are why I generally don't wander into the romance genre. It's one thing to play on the trope of opposites attracting, but it's a whole other thing when one of the "opposites" is as malicious and scary as Alex gets.

The discussion is still going on yesterday's What About Team Bella? post, so if you haven't checked it out already, pop over there!

Review: Return to Sender by Julia Alvarez

Found via: BBYA 2010 Nominations
Winner: Pura Belpre Author Award 2010

Both Tyler and Mari live on a small Vermont dairy farm, but they're there for two very different reasons: Tyler is the son of the farmer, who was injured over the summer in a tractor accident. Mari is the daughter of the Mexican migrant worker Tyler's father hired (along with his two brothers, Mari's uncles) to help around the farm.

Tyler is a perpetual worrier: he's worried that his parents are going to sell the farm, but there are also rumors that Mari and her family are in the country illegally. Why would his parents want to break the law by employing illegal immigrants?

Alvarez does a good job working through Tyler's concerns. The novel follows his and Mari's year in sixth grade, which really is just about the time you begin to figure out the world isn't all black and white. We watch Tyler grow from someone who is fairly absolutist to recognizing the shades of gray in the world as he begins to form his own opinions and craft an identity separate from his parents' beliefs.

Less well done were Mari's parts of the narrative. Tyler's chapters are from a 3rd person perspective while Mari occasionally tells a chapter through letters. There's nothing wrong with this device, except Alvarez fills Mari's chapters with some very awkward exposition, with Mari telling characters she is writing to things that they already know, because the events happened to them before Mari started her letter. It's the sort of writing conceit one usually sees in science fiction, where one scientist is explaining something to another using phrases like "Well of course you know about..." and rehashing things that all of the characters know but the reader doesn't. It sticks out every time it happens (and it happens in several of Mari's letters), to the point where I really thought Alvarez should have chosen a different style for conveying Mari's chapters.

September 15-October 15 is Hispanic heritage month, and this is an excellent title to read as part of the celebration as Mari and her two sisters teach Tyler and his family (especially his grandmother) all sorts of Mexican traditions. Really I think the grandmother was my favorite character - she's so excited to learn from the girls and doesn't hesitate before embracing and celebrating things like the Day of the Dead.

Review: Jumped by Rita Williams-Garcia

Found via: BBYA 2010 nominations

This is a slim little book that has one relentless focus: follow three girls over the course of one school day after one girl inadvertently insults another. Leticia overhears Dominique threaten to beat up Trina after school, after Trina accidentally bumps her in the hallway before school. That's the entire set up, and what follows in an increasingly tense school day, as Dominique obsesses over a long list of slights that have led her to the point where beating up another girl seems like a reasonable response, Trina is oblivious and goes through the day as her (almost annoyingly) bubbly self, and Leticia wavers endlessly over whether she should warn Trina or just mind her own business.

All three girls are written realistically with distinct voices - the chapters alternate between their first person accounts and I never had a moment where I needed to flip to the beginning of the chapter to figure out who was narrating now. The review from Booklist on Amazon accuses Trina of being simplified with her "relentless snobbery," but I had a totally different read on her: yes, she's a bit stuck up and full of herself, but how often do we get to read about a young woman who has complete confidence in herself? Trina never wonders if people are judging her for her weight, her skin, her hair - she knows she's fabulous and thinks everyone else agrees with her assessment! We know Dominique clearly disagrees, and it's pretty clear Leticia thinks she's stuck up as well and doesn't think anyone else likes her, either, but since we have three first person narrators it's impossible to get an objective stance on where Trina really stands in the eyes of the student body. I thought it was a great addition to her character.

Review: Tropical Secrets by Margarita Engle

After a positive experience with Because I Am Furniture, when I discovered I'd picked up another novel-in-verse format, I didn't immediately groan. Hey, maybe the genre really has grown since I first discovered it in high school, and the poetry really can work!

Mmm, maybe not.

Tropical Secrets follows four people in late 1930s-early 1940s Cuba: Daniel, David, Paloma and El Gordo (Paloma's father). The story begins in June 1939, when Daniel flees Germany after crystalnacht. He leaves his parents behind in Germany with the promise to meet again in New York City - but Daniel's ship is turned away from New York, and several other potential ports; the only place that will accept a boat full of German Jewish refugees is Cuba.

In Cuba, Daniel meets Paloma, a local girl, and David, himself a Jewish refugee, though one that's been in Cuba for years. El Gordo makes occasional appearances as a local criminal who sells visas to the desperate refugees: if they can't afford his prices, they are sent back on the boat, sent directly back to the horrors of Germany.

The problem I have with this being a verse novel is that the poetry just never felt compelling - really it felt like chopped up prose. No poetry doesnt have to rhyme or anything, but isn't the point of poetry that it can convey feelings/images/"things" that prose just can't do (or would take hundreds of more words to)? This felt like basic prose sentences were chopped up and called poetry with very little re-dressing. It ends up being an extremely sparse novel when there is room for so much more.

This does, however, share a very interesting part of history, as many Jewish refugees did end up in Cuba. Nazi spies were sent to the island to stir up anti-semitism against the refugees so they would be sent back to Germany and end up in the concentration camps. Bonus points for that, but not enough for me to recommend the novel without hesitations.

Review: Soul Enchilada by David Macinnis Gill

Oh, man, this was a fun book.

I love gripping adventure stories, protagonists in peril and deep character dramas, but while all of those are often gripping and intriguing, they can rarely be described as "fun" (example: I love The Hunger Games and Catching Fire more than is probably healthy, but I am EXHAUSTED by the time I'm finished reading them because of the emotional ups and downs throughout. Entertaining and satisfying describe both books, but "fun"? Not unless you're Machiavelli).

Soul Enchilada, however, is fun, despite the literal life-or-death circumstances Bug finds herself in when she finds out her grandfather put her soul and beloved car up for collateral in a literal deal with the devil.

Bug hasn't had an easy life - her mother died in a house fire when she was young and she and her grandfather have bounced from one crappy apartment to another. But Bug doesn't wallow in self pity - instead these hardships have given her an admirable backbone and a bit of an attitude. That attitude gets her into lots of trouble throughout the book, but it's also the source of her strength and what keeps her determined to stay one step ahead of Lucifer and Beelzebub - the Devil's repo man.

There's a wide variety of supporting characters, each more colorful and entertaining than the last. I loved Bug's strength - and also loved that she wasn't the only female character with spunk in the book. Strong female characters can exist in a vacuum - they are the soul woman who can stand among men. But Bug not only has Pesto, an easy on the eyes demon hunter, in her court, but Pesto's (good) witch of a mother plus the mysterious E. Figg, the only attorney not on the devil's payroll on her side. Both women play small but influential parts in Bug's story - it's safe to say that Bug probably wouldn't have had a snowball's chance against Mr. Beals and Lucifer without their help.

On a side note, I also loved the cameo appearances of my college friends in twenty years: the middle aged guys that work with Pesto whom we first meet during an epic Halo battle that involved tea bagging. I know several guys who could turn out like that (minus the demon-hunting; outside of D&D, anyway).

Review: My Most Excellent Year: A Novel of Love, Mary Poppins and Fenway Park by Steve Kluger

It was definitely the subtitle that got me to read this book. Love, Mary Poppins and baseball (and not just baseball, but the poor Red Sox)? I had to know what it was about.

The story of TC's, Augie's and Ale's freshman year of high school is told mainly through diary entries, but also IMs, private chatrooms, text messages and e-mails. It's a sprawling story, chronicling more than a year in their lives, which makes summarizing this hard, but let's give it a shot.

TC and Augie have been best friends and brothers since elementary school when, shortly after TC's mother died, Augie was the only kid willing to talk to him. Since then they've done everything together, from sleepovers to family vacations. Augie puts up with TC's obsession with baseball, while TC tries to follow Augie's passion for musicals (turns out that Augie is gay and everyone but him knows it).

Ale, meanwhile, is the daughter of US diplomats - though she's more likely to start an international incident than follow in the family business. After her father retires from his position as ambassador, the family moves to Brookline, Massachusetts at the beginning of Ale's freshman year. TC is immediately smitten with Ale - who initially is determined to discourage TC's attention. She does, however, strike up a friendship with Augie when it comes time to produce the freshman talent show (Augie is director, Ale is producer). And of course where Augie goes, TC follows.

While TC is trying to woo Ale, he is also finishing up his baseball season where he has picked up a six-year-old deaf fan who tells TC when to swing at pitches. The boy, Hucky, is an orphan who has been bounced from foster home to foster home and has trust issues, but TC is as determined to bring this kid out of his shell as he is to get a date with Ale.

As Augie directs the freshman talent show, he not only befriends and mentors Ale, but also Andy - soccer player, swimmer, football fan and totally cute. Augie finds himself falling head over heels for the boy before he even realizes that it is a boy he is lusting after. Luckily, Andy feels the same way about Augie.

Ale takes dancing and singing classes, trying to keep her parents in the dark about her new-found hobbies. When not practicing or driving TC crazy, she pursues various social justice issues, from getting some of the more execrable songs cut from Kiss Me, Kate to building a baseball field at a memorial for the US Japanese internment camps of WWII (TC is helping with that one).

Yeah, like I said, there's a lot going on here, but most of it really works out. Sometimes I wondered about the convention of including e-mails and letters sent by parents and teachers - would the kids really have access to these to include them in a school paper? But other items, like Augie's mother's play reviews (a woman after my own heart - we're in agreement that Henry Higgins may be the worst character written for the stage EVER) add another fun level to the story. Also, sometimes it seems that Kluger got his electronic formats mixed up - when the kids were sending e-mails back and forth they would cut each other off. Which you definitely can't do in e-mail, and can't even do in most IM programs now (back in the day when I used ICQ there was a chat version that let you see what the other person was saying as they typed it, so theoretically you could cut someone off in that)

I do have to say I caught the book in a (relatively) big continuity problem. The book explicitly states that their freshman year was 2003. Yet Ale implies that Augie only discovered the musical Chicago in December of that year. Trust me, any musical fan worth his or her salt saw the movie version of Chicago back in 2001.

The relationship between Hucky and TC feels perhaps the most authentic in the book, followed closely by Ale and TC. The lengths TC goes to to make Hucky's life better are heartwarming. And the development of Ale's and TC's relationship definitely feels real.

And now, because this is a running theme for me, commentary on the gay characters: on the one hand, Augie and Andy are treated like any other couple. Augie's parents don't care (I don't believe we ever heard what Andy's parents thought), TC says "Duh" when Augie comes out over IM, and in their private e-mails Augie's dad wonders if "this generation" has made coming out superfluous. On the other hand, Augie is one big stereotype. He addresses a "Diva of the Week" in his diary, writing to Liza Minelli or Judy Garland (TC addresses his mom in his diary, and Ale spends most of her time writing to Jackie Kennedy, when really Eleanor Roosevelt seems like a first lady after Ale's own heart). Yes, he can also kick a soccer ball around, but after he starts going out with Andy it seems most of the sports drop out of his life. So points for treating a gay character like everyone else, but I would love to see a gay boy who is, I don't know, a big academic geek or something. They all seem to be either queens who love mince around singing show tunes or, in an effort to buck that stereotype, athletes. Here, Augie tries to be both of those (with more emphasis on the show tunes), but still comes off as a stereotype.

And yet, while Augie is quite stereotypical in some regards, I did appreciate the glimpses at his and Andy's relationship. In some ways it's not as well-rounded as TC's and Ale's, but that's partly because with Augie and Andy we only get Augie's diary on the relationship, while both TC and Ale contribute their own halves to the story.

So while on one level I can find lots of things to nitpick about this story, overall it comes across very well and was extremely enjoyable.