Review: Five Flavors of Dumb by Antony John

So...it's music week on Bookish Blather!

Well, not really, since I don't have another music-related title for Friday, but I've sure gone through a bit of a music spell the last few weeks, with Janis Joplin, 50 women in rock songs, and now a high school hard rock band with a deaf manager.

When the winners of the local Teen Battle of the Bands put on a show on the school's front steps that literally sets their amps on fire, Piper is fascinated. In a moment of recklessness, she volunteers to be their manager, betting that she can get them a paying gig within a month. The move shocks her friends and family; Piper is a quiet student who doesn't know the first thing about music - and she can hardly hear Dumb anyway. Piper is profoundly deaf and can only hear with the assistance of the Barbie-pink hearing aids she's been saddled with since she was 6.

But Piper is determined to prove herself as a capable manager - and she's desperate for the money, any money, after she learns her parents have plundered her college fund in order to pay for the cochlear implants of her deaf baby sister. Home life is stressful with the new baby and the constant reminders that even as a toddler Grace can hear more than Piper ever will - so Piper is willing to do anything and everything to get Dumb the publicity they need so she can restore her college funds and escape to the elite Gallaudet University with its extensive programs for the deaf. But the members of Dumb aren't always willing to play nice - members are alternately apathetic, diva-licious, angry, shy and outright incompetent. Piper has her work cut out for her as she tries to meld the five distinct flavors of Dumb into one harmonious sound.

I love pretty much everything in this book. For one thing, it doesn't follow the "standard" band storyline I've seen in so many movies. You know how it goes - band experiences sky rocketing fame, then falls into the temptations of sex, drugs and rock and roll, before diving into a self-destructive spiral that only ends when everyone hates each other and/or someone is dead. Instead, Dumb starts as dysfunctional - they only know three songs, and they're all covers. The band consists of a lead singer, a bassist, and a guitarist who only knows three chords. So first Piper recruits a drummer. Then the lead singer insists on bringing the school's resident hot chick into the mix - even though she has no discernible talent. It's a complete and absolute mess all around, but Piper - driven by desperation for money and approval - keeps on going.

Piper is far from perfect. She is not Inspirationally Disadvantaged, nor is she the Disabled Snarker or any number of other tropes for the disabled that pop up often in the media. Yes, Piper is deaf, and this has clearly profoundly affected her life. Sometimes she's bitter about it - or at least bitter that her sister is able to benefit from her treatment in ways Piper never could have. She's clearly not a saint, and pulls some really crummy moves in her desperate attempts at achieving stardom for Dumb. She is the very definition of a well-rounded character, and it's wonderful to watch her grow as a character throughout the story.

Five Flavors of Dumb also gets major bonus points for the subtle "Girl Power" message. Dumb ends up with two female band members, and they absolutely don't get along initially - but it's also because one doesn't respect the other's ability, not out of any catfighting scenario. And the two band members and Piper end up banding together at a crucial moment to offer each other support. John doesn't call explicit attention to these moments, but I've seen so many stories where girls have superficial friendships, or no female friendships at all, that's it's just fantastic to see these complex relationships play out in a totally natural way.

More bonus points, coming from this non-music person: John weaves a mini-lecture on the Seattle music scene into the story. Seattle, of course, has been home to some of American music's most influential players, and Piper is introduced to two of them via a mysterious scavenger hunt: Kurt Cobain and Jimi Hendrix. The scenes that play out around the search for Hendrix's childhood home are especially moving.

And I know this review is getting long, but one last comment - what an AWESOME cover! It totally embodies the rock and roll feeling of the novel. I have so much love for this one, I'm surprised that I only found out about it through my library's "Teen Scene" newsletter - usually by the time that arrives in my mailbox I've read or requested every title! So thanks, Queens Library, for pointing this one out!

Nonfiction Monday Review: The Girl in the Song by Michael Heatley

Found via: Chasing Ray

I'm not generally a big music person - I'm not the type that is constantly hooked up to an iPod or streaming Pandora. The music I do listen to, however, I like to know a lot about. The lyrics at a bare minimum. When VH1's Behind the Music debuted, I was totally fascinated because I wanted to know what inspired people to write the songs they did. The Girl in the Song fulfills that need for me, describing the women who inspired 50 rock songs, by artists ranging from Buddy Holly to David Bowie.


Heatley arranges the songs by title and methodically spends a couple of pages on each song, dedicating most of the text to a biography of the woman and/or how she inspired the artist, and then in a box at the end gives a short introduction to the band or artist (as necessary - eventually all of the Beatles and Rolling Stones pages are dedicated just to the woman, because there's only so much you can say about those legendary groups without becoming redundant).

Perhaps because the book is limited to "rock" songs, it sometimes feels a little redundant - as I said, there are a lot of Beatles and Rolling Stones references. Even David Bowie has multiple entries. I'm far from a music encyclopedia, but were there no other songs worthy of having their stories told?

That being said, I did like that variety that is included. Most of the songs are well known by now, and some of the background stories are well known, too, but others are more obscure. Leonard Cohen wrote Chelsea Hotel No 2 about Janis Joplin. "Fire and Rain" was written in part as a memorial to a dead friend. I was especially fascinated when the same person came up multiple times. English model/photographer Pattie Boyd inspired at least three songs by two different artists - husbands George Harrison and Eric Clapton, and the Farrow sisters Mia and Prudence both inspired famous songs.

I really appreciate that Heatley keeps most of the focus on the women who served as inspiration for the songs. The artist's side of the story has already been shared with millions of people - it's about time the woman's side was shared. Heatley highlights how the songs popularity affected the women, and their own career accomplishments.

This is a quick read, but extremely fun for pop culture and music trivia fans. While it's not specifically a YA title, I think it will have a lot of interest for young music fans, and could be a great companion read to a book like Audrey Wait, which is all about how life changes dramatically for a girl who inspires a major hit song.


This week's Nonfiction Monday roundup is hosted by Charlotte's Library. Get 2011 off to an educational start and see what else is being reviewed today!

Nonfiction Monday Review: Janis Joplin Rise Up Singing by Ann Angel

Nominated for the 2011 YALSA award for excellence in nonfiction

Janis Joplin. Does the woman truly need an introduction? An inimitable voice, a tragically short life, she was a true rock star, one of the few women to jump in feet first to rock hard with the men of the 60s.

As soon as I opened this book I knew why it had been nominated for the nonfiction award. It's a visually striking book, with psychedelic borders on every page, sticking out against the mostly black and white photography.

The book dives right in to Joplin's mostly unhappy high school life. While she had a loving and supportive family, she didn't fit in with the rigid conformity demanded by her small Texas home town. Joplin fell in with the "bad boys," started reading the Beats, and plotting ways to escape - first to Austin, then to LA, San Francisco and New York City.

Angel follows Joplin's artistic growth. Music wasn't her first or only passion - she was also a painter and initially used that as her creative outlet before discovering her amazing voice. Inspired by folk and the blues, Janis went on to forge a sound all her own.


(My favorite Janis Joplin song - Piece of My Heart)

Unfortunately, it doesn't feel like the text lives up to the art design in this biography. It feels choppy, with extremely brief and random notes on parts of Joplin's life that I feel like were only put in there to be edgy. There's a paragraph or two on Joplin's relationships with women, which are never brought up again. Same with a brief paragraph about an abortion Joplin sought in Mexico in 1967 - a paragraph that also includes the factually incorrect statement that abortion was illegal in the United States at the time. This is a minor point, and I have no reason to believe Angel gets any of the important biographical data wrong, but it still bugs me and makes me question how correct the rest of her research was.

EDIT: Ann Angel was kind enough to contact me today regarding this point (and I would have corrected this sooner, but Blogger wasn't cooperating with my work computer). After careful consideration, she and her copy editors "opted to apply the date of the Supreme Court decision (Roe v. Wade)" to the text when discussing the legality of abortion in the US. I really appreciate Ann Angel contacting me about this point and clarifying her writing and research process. I still feel that the way the text is currently written it over-simplifies a culturally significant issue, but I want to publicly thank Ms. Angel for taking the time to contact me and consider my concerns.

This is a beautiful book, about an important person in music history, but unfortunately the writing doesn't live up to its promise.




Today's Nonfiction Monday is hosted by Books Together, but before checking out the rest of the nonfiction being reviewed this week, please also visit my What have I missed? post from yesterday, where I'm collecting titles for my own personal 2011 reading challenge.

Nonfiction Monday Review: The Cowgirl Way by Holly George-Warren

Found via: The Amelia Bloomer Project

In elementary school, I loved stories about Calamity Jane and Annie Oakley. The Wild West was intriguing and exotic, and here were two women who made their own way through a rough and tumble world that was otherwise dominated by men! What wasn't there to like?

Unfortunately, Jane and Annie were my only exposure to cowgirls and western women in general. I think in middle school I learned about Belle Starr, but in a context that implied she probably did little more than run a safe house for male outlaws. Holly George-Warren is here with The Cowgirl Way to correct that bit of misinformation (she may have run a safe house, but she really did get up to all sorts of outlaw trouble on her own!), and show how wide-ranging cowgirl life could (and still can) be.

This is a light biography, with chapters devoted to "Women of the Old West," "Outlaws and Rebels," and several variations on cowgirls in entertainment, from wild west shows (starring the likes of Annie Oakley) and rodeos to singing cowgirls and cowgirls on TV and in film. This organizational set up gives us a great overview of the varieties of cowgirls that have captured the American imagination in the last 100+ years, but doesn't leave room to delve very deep into any one story. Personally, I also would have preferred more focus on what western life was really like, rather than an emphasis on cowgirls as entertainment, but that's a minor complaint.

I mentioned back in my women's history month post that I was disappointed in how often women's stories were relegated to March, and this would be an excellent book to use to illustrate parts of western life from a different perspective. The first chapter, "Women of the Old West" is a perfect illustration of how harsh conditions in the west when America was expanding necessitated women taking on roles that were considered improper back in the east. Clothes, riding sidesaddle, and the eventual right to vote (won in Wyoming, fifty years before the 19th amendment would be passed, granting the right to all women in the country) are all mentioned.

Also, I need to start keeping a list of off-the-beaten-track museums I want to visit some day. Did you know there's a National Cowgirl Museum? It and the attached hall of fame are mentioned in the closing chapter, "Twenty-First-Century Cowgirls." If I ever make it to Fort Worth, I'm definitely hitting it up!

While I'm now hungry for more cowgirl knowledge, this is definitely an excellent book to stoke curiosity and a jumping off point for more in-depth reading on the women of America's west.



Nonfiction Monday is hosted this week by Rasco from RIF. Be sure to stop by to see all the great nonfiction titles being shared this week!

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.

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!

The Sky is Everywhere by Jandy Nelson

Recommended by Cindy who sold me on it by saying "Humor, grief, sexy bits"

I apologize profusely for taking so darn long to post this review. This was the first thing I read back during the read-a-thon, having only a quarter of the book left to finish at the beginning of the day and desperately needing to finish it before I started on anything else. Why has it taken me so long to write this review? Because the read-a-thon was when my books read to books reviewed ratio started to get skewed and I just lost track of this one for awhile.

But no longer!

Lennie and Bailey are sisters who've been inseparable for as long as Lennie can remember. Abandoned by their mother when Lennie was only two, they've grown up with Gram, an artist who only paints with the color green and grows the most beautiful roses in town, and Uncle Big, a man in love with love, and they've been a content, if idiosyncratic, family for years.

Until Bailey dies suddenly of an arrhythmia. Lennie feels like she's lost without her beautiful and talented older sister around. Gram and Big both fret over Lennie, trying to support her while also letting her heal and grieve in her own way. To add to Lennie's disorientation, she finds that after a lifetime of indifference to boys, sex is suddenly on her mind all of the time, leading her alternately into the arms of her sister's boyfriend and the handsome new French boy in her music classes, in an attempt to reconnect with the world again.

I should note that Cindy's full recommendation of this read "Humor, grief, sexy bits, a reefer smoking uncle and a painter gram (who is made of awesome) and random poetry, a forest bed and band geeks. Doesn't get much better." I couldn't agree more, and that one sentence really does sum up all of the wonderful aspects of this novel. All of the characters were beautifully drawn, even the adults (who often get the short end of the stick in YA books). I love that Uncle Big still loves the idea of romance after five divorces, and fully believes that the roses Gram grows cause people to fall in love.

The snippets of poetry throughout the novel are absolutely inspired. Each chapter begins with a piece of Lennie's poetry written on any number of found objects - receipts, coffee cups, park benches - if she can leave her words on it, Lennie will find a way.

Lennie's relationships are absolutely heartbreaking and totally real. Sometimes she isn't the easiest person to like, because the rational part of my mind says making out with two different guys and lying about it is uncool, but at the same time my heart was breaking for her - Lennie has lost so much in her life, is it so wrong that she wants all of the love she can get at this time?

Definitely one of the top books of the year - you absolutely have to seek this one out!

Review: Carbon Diaries 2017 by Saci Lloyd

Sequel to Carbon Diaries 2015

I could have sworn I reviewed Carbon Diaries 2015 somewhere, either here or at Goodreads. Apparently my review was a figment of my imagination. I hate it when that happens.

Carbon Diaries 2017 picks up a year after the first one ended. Carbon rationing has been in place for Great Britain for two years now, and the rest of Europe is planning on following suit. Water riots are breaking out around the world: Africa is still held in the stranglehold of drought, and in the US, states are threatening to dam their rivers so that their precious water won't travel out of state (especially to places like Arizona where it's felt that people have no reason to be living in the middle of the desert).

Laura, our diarist from the first book, is now in college, still dating Adi, and rocking out with the dirty angels with dreams of a European tour about to be realized. While in 2015 the main focus was on survival in a radically altered society, now Laura and her family and friends must deal with the political fallout. A neo-Nazi-esque group the United Front is gaining traction in London, claiming that the foreigners and immigrants are taking the few jobs that are left, leaving the white populace to starve. Fighting against the tide is 2, a radical and potentially terroristic group that is determined to prevent the United Front from gaining any ground. Somewhere in the middle is the government, who will go to any extremes necessary to keep the peace, even if it means severely abridging personal freedoms.

In the last book we got a few glimpses of what the rest of the world was like through e-mails with family members in different countries, but when the dirty angels go on tour we get to see first hand the political unrest caused by the destabilization of the environment.

I vaguely recall that I wasn't a huge fan of the first book, though since I can't find my thoughts on that one ANYWHERE I can't confirm that. Clearly I wasn't put off enough to want to avoid the sequel, which I did mostly enjoy. Books written in diary format often require me to suspend my disbelief a bit, because how likely is a person to be able to accurately recall whole conversations after the fact? Also, it's a paper diary and there's a resource shortage, so is Laura really printing out pictures and texts she receives on her phone to paste into her diary? She's squatting in an abandoned building at one point - I highly doubt there were printers nearby. So while I like the multi-media aspect of the book, it doesn't really make logical sense.

One thing I did enjoy about this one was the wide variety of view points on the political scene afforded to us by the multiple band members. Two band members grow increasingly radical, though not always for the same cause, which brings about some tension. Another band member seems to care about nothing other than music and wants to avoid thinking about anything even slightly political. Laura is still caught in the middle - she recognizes there are a lot of things wrong in the world, but will her contributions to any one cause actually bring about change? Or will it just get her into trouble and further hinder her dreams of punk rock stardom? There are tons of debates in this book; it's certainly not a light read, but it is a good one!

Review: King of the Screwups by K.L. Going

Found via: Kirkus Best of '09


I think all of us book nerds are happiest when we find a book that is truly engaging - not only can't we put it down, but we aren't even aware time has passed. Here in New York, the general consensus seems to be that a book is truly great if it makes you miss your subway stop. King of the Screw Ups didn't actually make me miss my stop - but that's only because I looked up after thinking I'd only been on the train for 5 minutes and instead found myself 6 stops from home (there are 17 stops between work and home). After that I made myself look at what stop we were at constantly, because while it's a high compliment for a book, it's still really annoying to miss your stop!


Liam is the son of a high powered CEO and a former supermodel - and much to his father's chagrin, he's taken more after his mother than his father. Liam brings home average grades (his father thinks anything less than an A is worthless), designer clothes, and far too many girls to fool around with. After one screw up too many, his dad is kicking him out of the house, sending him off to live with grandparents who hate him.


Luckily for Liam, his mom intervenes, and arranges for him to go live with his "Aunt Pete" behind his father's back. Pete is Liam's gay, cross-dressing, glam-rocking, trailer-living uncle who's been estranged from Liam's father and grandparents for years. And while he wants a relationship of some kind with Liam, he's really not sure he's the man to be trusted with straightening out whatever problems Liam is having.


Liam goes from living in an opulent home with a manicured lawn and massive closet space, to sharing a trailer with a dusty yard and absolutely zero closets, not even an iron to help keep his wardrobe pristine. After a shaky start at school, Liam determines that he should aim to be the geekiest, least popular kid in the school, totally devoted to his studies and geeky pursuits like the AV club. He's also on a mission to befriend Darleen, Pete's next door neighbor, the cousin of one of Pete's best friends, and also the most unpopular girl in school. Darleen, however, sees right through Liam's attempts and is convinced he wants to be popular and is trying to befriend her in an attempt to humiliate her.


But it seems that even when he's trying to screw up, Liam keeps screwing up even more. Every attempt at being unpopular blows up in face. He and Pete butt heads constantly in their small shared space, over everything from school to fashion. Liam isn't sure that he can be all his father wants him to be - but what other options does he have?


There was so much I loved about this book I'm not entirely sure where to begin! I loved how there was almost no conflict about Pete's sexual orientation - the only hate comes from Liam's dad (who has lots of issues with Pete; his sexual orientation is only one of them) and a bigoted bus driver who kicks Liam off the bus mostly because he has a gay uncle. None of the teenagers Liam hangs out with cares about Pete, and nothing is mentioned about Orlando, who appears to be openly dating Pete, being a high school English teacher. I found it very refreshing that Pete's orientation was only one part of his personality. He doesn't even cross-dress that often - more often he's in outrageous gender-bending outfits (not totally female, but not traditionally masculine, either, and with crazy makeup) as part of his glam rock band (which I loved).


I also thought this was a great representation of class outside of the very poor and the very rich. Liam's family is certainly very, very rich - but he's living with his uncle who works overnight at a radio station and lives in the trailer park. Liam asks Pete point blank at one point why he lives in the trailer when he's clearly smart enough to get a real job and live some place better. Pete's response is he's happy with who he is and where he lives - why should he try to live up to someone else's standards?


The theme of being yourself runs rampant through the novel, and occasionally gets a little heavy handed, but it's also clear that it's a message Liam needs to hear repeatedly since he has an overwhelming desire to gain his father's approval.


And speaking of his father: this is easily the worst dad since Say the Word. My reaction wasn't quite as visceral against Liam's dad as it was against Shawna's, but I think that's because we're a little more removed from some of the vileness of Liam's dad. We see him briefly at the beginning of the book before he ships Liam off, and then we only see him in Liam's flashbacks, so it's a little harder to judge him through the rosy lens of Liam's perspective.


This is easily going to be on my list of the best books I read in 2010. Highly recommend everyone pick it up!

Review: Vast Fields of Ordinary by Nick Burd

Found via: BBYA 2010 nominations

The final list of BBYA nominees has been posted...and I've only read 30 of them! Well, 31 now. Still, not nearly as many as I had thought. BBYA titles are probably going to take over my reading list for a little while.

Vast Fields of Ordinary takes place over Dade's last summer at home before he moves from Iowa to Michigan for college. Brief side note here: as a Michigan native, I have to respectfully disagree with Dade's father, who also attended the fictional Fairmont College in Michigan, who says that "Michigan is always beautiful." Sure, it has it's moments, but nobody thinks the place looks beautiful in the middle of a February thaw. Or alewife season on Lake Michigan. "Always" is an overstatement that I'm sure my fellow Michigan peeps will agree with.

Okay, aside over.

Dade's life is less than awesome at this point - he has a boyfriend, Pablo, a super popular member of the football team, that won't look at Dade outside of the bedroom. Pablo also has a girlfriend, who hates Dade's guts, even though Dade is reasonably sure she has no idea what is really going on between him and Pablo. Everyone at school as always assumed Dade is gay, but he's never really confirmed or denied the allegation. The marriage of Dade's parents is also falling apart as his dad starts seeing another woman, and even confides this bit of information in his teenage son, requesting he keep it from his mother.

Life begins to turn around for Dade when he meets two new people: first is Lucy, the lesbian niece of one of Dade's neighbors, who's been sent to Iowa from California to keep her away from the bad influences out there. The pair immediately bond over the Jack and Diet Cokes they sneak during a neighborhood barbecue. The other new friend is Alex, a local pot dealer, who Dade falls for at first sight and, with Lucy's encouragement, pursues for a relationship. A relationship which sparks an irrational jealousy in Pablo, but that doesn't particularly bother Dade: he's finally happy, which is something he never felt with Pablo.

This is a quiet, easy going novel. There are few surprises, except maybe for how Pablo reacts to Dade finding someone new, but really even he follows the "jealous, borderline abusive, ex-boyfriend" trope that's seen in non-LGBT-focused books all of the time.

I absolutely loved Lucy, but that's probably because I have a soft spot for rebellious lesbian characters.

All of the characters are well drawn, and there was nothing that I really disliked about the novel, but I also feel like it's one that isn't going to stick with me forever.

Review: Going Bovine by Libba Bray

Found via: NYC Teen Author Festival
Winner: Printz Award 2010

I got my first glimpse of Going Bovine back during the NYC Teen Author Festival, at the I Have Seen the Future... event. Libba Bray cracked us all up with Cameron and Gonzo's adventures with the Church of Everlasting Satisfaction and Snack 'n' Bowl.

The rest of the book was just about as crazy and ridiculous as that excerpt she read. If nothing else, the book is consistent.

Going Bovine stars Cameron, a 16 year old slacker who wants nothing more than just to get through high school. He really doesn't care about his classes, his job, his family responsibilities, his hobbies...he's just muddling through. Until he gets a devastating diagnosis of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease - aka Mad Cow disease. A punk rock angel named Dulcie appears to Cameron in his hospital room, telling him he must take his roommate, a paranoid dwarf called Gonzo, on an epic quest to save the world from an inter-dimensional rupture, and find a cure for Cameron along the way.

Honestly my first reaction at the end of the book was "What the hell did I just read?!" This book is 99.58% ridiculous, with that last .42% made up of the occasional deep meaningful insight into the meaning of life, the universe and everything. But it's a fun-ridiculous, not a why-did-I-just-read-that, it-served-no-purpose ridiculous. Be open to the ridiculous and the weird, and you'll enjoy Going Bovine.

Review: Ten Cents a Dance by Christine Fletcher

My first book of 2009! That I read several days ago...I do my blogging in spurts. I'll spend a couple of days reading and working, and then use my days off to catch up on all of my blogging. Not the most sustainable method of blogging, but it's what I've got.

Ten Cents a Dance is a heartbreaking and in some ways terrifying story of a teenaged taxi dancer during WWII. Ruby Jacinski has lived her whole life in Chicago's Back of the Yards. After her single mother is no longer able to work in the physically demanding meat packing plant, Ruby quits school and takes up at the plant in her mother's place. She works in the least glamorous place imaginable - packing jars of pickled pigs feet (bleck!).

Whenever she can convince her mother to let her out of the house, however, Ruby loves to go with her best friend from the neighborhood to dance halls. Ruby is an excellent dancer, and her moves, good looks and spunk attract the attention of one of the neighborhood's bad boys, Paulie Suelze, who suggests she start working at the Starlight Dance Academy, where she could pull down as much as $50 a week. Compared to her $12 a week salary at the meat packing plant, Ruby jumps at the chance.

Of course, the Starlight Dance Academy isn't the sort of place Ruby's mother wants her working, even before Ruby realizes how seedy the joint is (she originally believes it's a very elegant and respectable establishment), and so begins Ruby's balancing act. She must keep her mother and younger sister believing that she's a telephone switchboard operator. As a dancer at the club, she has to balance the needs and desires of a diverse client base in order to keep raking in the generous tips and free after work meals that pad her regular pay check. On the one hand she has an extremely generous but rather straight-laced and racist benefactor, and on the other she and a friend have been entertaining a pair of Filipino gentlemen who may not have the most money but can dance and enjoy going to hopping jazz joints. There are the other women at the Starlight who are all vying for the same pool of men in order to keep earning money. And then there's Paulie, who starts dating Ruby behind her mother's back (another secret she has to keep from her family), who doesn't seem to care about what Ruby does at work, but is increasing the pressure on her to be "sweet" to him in the backseat of his car.

In short, it's a tangled web that Ruby falls into. She fights racism, attempted rape, pressure for sex, family loyalty, balancing work and home life, having a socially unacceptable job - and all of this against the background of the beginning of World War II and Chicago's ethnically divided neighborhoods.

There was a lot going on in this book (just look at all the tags this one fits under), but Fletcher handled all of it wonderfully, in part because she didn't try to give everything equal significance. For example, a lot of the racism happened on the periphery or in the background, as there were some jazz clubs that Ruby and her Filipino date couldn't get into because of his ethnicity, and a lot of the women at the Starlight carelessly threw around racial slurs when referring to the different types of men who might patron the establishment (the worst of it happens after Pearl Harbor).

At some points, Ruby is painfully naive, but it added to the weight and the heartbreak of the story, especially because Ruby tries so hard to be tough and worldly.

The author's note at the end of the book gives some fascinating insight into the creation of the book, from Fletcher's inspiration to the extensive research she put into the book (she really wanted to know exactly where all of the various ethnic neighborhoods were and what people of different groups thought of each other).

Review: Debbie Harry Sings in French by Meagan Brothers

I actually read two other books before I got to this one (Nation by Terry Pratchett and The Other Side of the Island by Allegra Goodman), but I tore through Debbie Harry Sings in French today and needed to talk about it!

Johnny isn't really a bad kid. After his father dies in a car accident and his mom falls apart, Johnny takes over paying the bills, clipping coupons and going grocery shopping to make sure he and his mom can survive. To him, it shouldn't matter that he dresses all in black, wears eyeliner and black nail polish, and dyes his long hair black, so long as he's the good kid taking care of his mom. And with all of that going on at home, can you really blame him for using alcohol as a way to soften the harsh edges of his world and help him get to sleep?

After a near-fatal mix of alcohol and drugs, however, Johnny's mom has woken up to her son's behavior and has had enough. She ships him off to rehab, where he kicks the alcohol habit, and then ships him off to his uncle Sam, claiming she wants to get him away from the bad influence of his druggie friends.

Naturally, Johnny isn't happy about this turn of events, but his uncle and his kid cousin aren't so bad - his uncle actually talks to him like an adult and is willing to trust Johnny so long as Johnny shows he can be trusted. He even tells Johnny's mom that he's out studying one evening when in reality Johnny is at a concert at a local club.

To avoid thinking about alcohol, or how his mother has essentially abandoned him, Johnny devotes himself to music. During his goth days he was a fan of goth and industrial music and even, perhaps shamefully, Marilyn Manson. But his tastes take a dramatic change upon the discover of Debbie Harry. She's beautiful, sexy and tough - everything that Johnny wishes he could be.

With the help of a supportive school counselor, and the coolest (and hottest) girl in the school with her own troubled past, Johnny explores what it means to be the "bad" kid sent away from home, with an unrequited love for New Wave music and stiletto heels.

This was an extremely fast read - I started it on the subway ride to work, read a little bit before work, then again on lunch, and finished it on the ride home. All in all, about an hour and a half to devour the whole thing, and I certainly didn't want to put it down. While there are lots of books out there about kids with drinking problems, dealing with parental displeasure over their appearance, absent/dead parents and even, increasingly, LGBT kids, this one had the fresh spin of dealing frankly with cross-dressing, proving emphatically that liking to wear the clothes of the opposite sex does not prove ones sexual orientation.

From glancing at the reviews over on Goodreads, it seems that a lot of people think that there are a few too many problems in the novel that take away from the "focus" of transvestism - there are even some suggestions that this would have been more powerful if the story hadn't been about "bad" kids. To this I say, the problems are necessary. Perhaps the alcohol issue was overcome too easily, and Johnny adapts to cross-dressing pretty easily, but I can also easily rationalize the potential problems and thoroughly enjoy the book.

In all honesty, neither Johnny nor Maria are bad kids. Bad things have happened to them, they've made poor choices, but both are determined to make good now. They help and support each other in the face of adversity and are open to new experiences. They don't always have the soundest judgment, but who does in high school?

My final verdict: this book is an excellent addition to LGBT young adult literature. While Johnny is not L, G, B or T (to his knowledge, at least), he certainly faces homophobic attacks because people think he might be one of those letters, or at least think repeatedly calling him a "fag" is the wittiest insult ever. It's a charming story about love, music, and an unconventional way of finding yourself.

Review: Audrey, Wait by Robin Benway

When Audrey decides to break up with her aspiring-rockstar boyfriend, Evan, she doesn't think anything big will come of it. Girls and boys break up all the time, after all. As she's leaving him and he calls out "Audrey, wait!" she keeps walking - unaware that she was about to inspire the country's Next Big Song.

Evan turns the break up into his band's break out song. As they start jetsetting around the world, Audrey finds her small world - which extends to school, working at an ice cream shop, and going to as many awesome concerts as she can make it to - suddenly invaded by the paparazzi and crazy fans. While at first her newfound celebrity affords her some awesome opportunities - hello VIP backstage passes! - it also has a number of downsides: paparazzi photos of her sleeping in class and blog posts calling her ugly are just the beginning.

While Evan has made her an instant celebrity, Audrey just wants to continue on with life as usual: going to concerts with her best friend, finding a new boyfriend, and studying for the SAT. But as it becomes clear that life, at least for as long as "Audrey, Wait!" is on the Billboard top 100 charts, will be anything but normal, how will Audrey, her family and, most importantly, her friends handle the change?

I thought this was a great read overall. For the first few chapters Audrey's voice and slang kind of grated on me - it came across as the author trying too hard to be young and hip. But eventually the story became so engrossing that I hardly noticed it for the last half of the book.

There were some plot points that were obvious from a mile away, but it was still enjoyable to see how the plot got to that point.

Audrey is a very smart young woman, who knows how to take care of herself. Sure she makes some dumb moves sometimes (giving sarcastic interviews to journalists, for example), but at the important times she does the smart thing. When a pair of creepy wanna-be musicians show up at her door and try to steal a kiss so Audrey can become the inspiration for their next song, she holds her composure and tells them to scram. Additionally, Audrey isn't afraid of showing she's book-smart either; throughout the book she's pointing out the SAT and PSAT words she keeps using. It's a small addition, but I love it when books aren't afraid to blatantly show that their female characters are academically smart.

Also awesome: Robin Benway is one of the few authors I've seen who actually seems to get how text messaging/IM/message boards/blogs all work. And yet her characters are smart enough that when we see IM conversations it's not all "lol i c u l8r." They use a realistic combination of full sentences and some shorthand (for example, Audrey says over IM at one point "got 2 go, dinner"). It's such a small thing, but the internet has been such a major part of my life for so long that it's just jarring to me when people don't get it (Audrey at one point mentions her parents don't understand how she can talk on the phone, IM and e-mail all at once and she doesn't understand how they can't. I can't do quite all of that at once, but my parents sure don't understand how I manage to type as fast as I do, or understand why someone might text rather than call someone).

Ultimately, this is one of those books I found impossible to put down. I read it over the course of an evening, on the subway and on breaks at work, and found it a quick and very fun read.