Review: Clara and Mr. Tiffany by Susan Vreeland

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sci Fi Friday Review: Feed by Mira Grant

Sometimes I debate what titles I should include in my Sci Fi Friday reviews. Should I expand it to Sci Fi/Fantasy? (No, because I generally dislike fantasy and don't want it interfering with my science-y goodness) What about horror? Or superhero graphic novels? While Feed falls firmly into the horror genre, what with all the zombies running around, there are also some awesome bits of science and tech, allowing me to make it a Sci Fi Friday contribution without hesitation.

Which is a good thing because there's been a dearth of SF in my life lately

It's been twenty years since the dead have risen. Mutated from the cures for humankind's greatest illnesses, the virus lies dormant in every human being, ready to reanimate the corpse to become one of the walking dead with the incessant need to feast on human flesh.

Siblings Georgia and Shaun, along with their friend Buffy, are mid-level bloggers ready to make it to the big time when they're selected to be part of the press team for presidential candidate Peter Ryman. Dedicated first and foremost to reporting the news, the bloggers unwittingly become part of the news when a series of suspicious zombie attacks start following Ryman. A cut fence here, an infected horse there, and it begins to become very obvious these aren't accidents - someone is using the zombie virus as a biological weapon.

Technically this is an adult novel, but I'm confident it will have plenty of teen crossover appeal. Georgie and Shaun are in their twenties (no definitive age is given that I saw), and they also still live at home, under the imposing shadows of their famous-blogger parents. There's been some talk over the past year about a potential new marketing category called "new adult" and I think Feed could easily be classified there.

Grant has included lots of funny details for readers to pick up on. While it's explained that Georgia was born at a time when the most popular girls' names were Georgia, Georgette and Barbra as George Romero was recognized as a sort of patron saint of the zombie apocalypse, it's up to zombie fans to guess where Shaun's name comes from - Shaun of the Dead anyone? (And for the uninitiated, Barbra was the woman in Night of the Living Dead) Bloggers have also organized themselves into a couple of factions - broadly the Newsies, the Fictionals and the Irwins, who like to go out in the field and poke zombies with sticks (they also give out an annual award called the Stevies, solidifying the tribute to the late, great Steve Irwin). Each faction has sub-factions - for example in the Newsies, the people who deliver the news with a healthy dose of opinion are called Stewarts. I loved these little glimpses into Grant's world building, and make it clear she probably has lots of details planned out for this trilogy.

As a blogger, and as someone who probably gets 90% of her news from various blogs (and the other 10% still from internet sources like the New York Times online or streaming Rachel Maddow's show), I absolutely loved following a group of citizen journalists on the campaign trail. Of the trio, Georgia and Buffy were definitely my favorites, but Shaun and Georgia have a great rapport as well.

While I loved the blending of genres in this book (new adult, zombie horror, journalistic thriller), and Grant has clearly done some great work with her world building, the overall setting just never worked for me. It's been twenty years since the zombies first rose, which really isn't much time at all, and there's already a fully functioning government? It felt like the zombies were never that much of a threat if the whole world didn't collapse, and now that the government is functioning so well the zombies are only terrifying on a personal level (like if you're like Shaun and enjoy poking zombies with sticks) and no longer on a widespread level. There are so many weapons and defense tactics and decontamination safety protocols in place, that society really isn't in danger of ever collapsing, which for me is half the fun of zombie stories. Humanity can try to rebuild, but it shouldn't be as good as it was before, unless a much longer period of time has passed.

I know this review is getting long but I have to praise Grant on one other thing - this has one of the best surprises I've ever read in a novel. If nothing else, strictly from a writing standpoint it's fascinating to see it done, and her technique for accomplishing it. It's a huge spoiler so I can't go into detail, but as a writer myself it was interesting to see an author do what I'd long thought was impossible.

Feed is the first book in a new trilogy, but there's no severe cliffhanger ending here and feels like a complete story in itself. I recommend picking this one up, though personally I don't know if I'll be back for more - the fully functional society really irritated me on some levels.

Sci-Fi Friday Review + Giveaway: Rot & Ruin by Jonathan Maberry

Yeah, you read that subject right! To kick off October right, I'm jumping in with a PERSONALIZED, SIGNED copy of Jonathan Maberry's new YA zombie novel Rot & Ruin! Read through my review to find the details at the bottom.

Set 14 years after the dead first began to rise, Benny Imura is 15 and has to choose his career quickly, before the town cuts his ration allowance in half. Benny looks into pretty much every half-decent job in town (and even a couple that are less-than-decent), all hoping to avoid the inevitable: joining the family business and becoming his brother's apprentice. What does his brother do?

Kill zombies.

Benny and his older brother Tom have a complicated relationship - as in Benny does little more than tolerate his older brother, who is totally uncool in comparison to the bad-ass zombie bounty hunters that tell tall tales filled with daring and adventure to entertain the kids. But when Benny runs out of other job options, he reluctantly begins training to join his brother in the field - and learns that there's a lot more to zombie hunting than just whacking zoms.

When Jonathan was talking about the novel at Sunday's Books of Wonder event, he noted that zombie novels are never about the zombies - the zombies are metaphors and catalysts for change. I think rarely has that fact come through as clearly as it does in Rot & Ruin. This is not a book about zombies. This isn't even really a book about zombie hunters. It's a book about brothers, about family, and about what it means to be human. There's lots of philosophy in this book - not the heavy sort that put me to sleep in college, but this is definitely a book that asks readers to think.

That's not to say there isn't any zombie killing action in the story. In fact, there's quite a bit, and Benny is often in the thick of it, even though he's not a trained bounty hunter yet, which adds to the drama - often he's armed with nothing more than a bokken. 


Placing the story within one generation or so of the onset of the zombies was an excellent idea. It's far enough that people realistically have some knowledge of the zombies (what will make a person return, how to kill them, what attracts them), but it still makes sense for some of the history to have to be explained to someone like Benny who was barely a toddler when the outbreak again. While some scenes were heavy on the exposition as older brother Tom explains the ways of the world to Benny, the reason for the exposition never felt forced; it just could have been trimmed a little. Also, Tom spends a bit too much time congratulating Benny for asking great questions; there certainly could have been a little more showing rather than telling.


I also have to give a major shout out for the multi-cultural cast. Tom and Benny are Japanese-American - which explains the affinity for Japanese weaponry (Tom uses a katana when fighting with a blade - remember, blades are quieter and don't need reloading!). A quick rundown of the heritages of other characters is given at one point as well - a doctor born in India, another man from Oaxaca, and Vietnamese and Chinese characters as well. While the zombies are a more-or-less uniform shade of gray, the living characters are vibrant and represent the real diversity found in the contemporary United States.


I know a book, especially a zombie book, is resonating with me when I can't wait to finish it so I can go work on my own novel. I've been toiling for ages on my own zombie novel, and I find my biggest inspiration to get back to writing is to read another great book. In this case, I'm not inspired because I think I have a superior take on zombies - rather I'm just excited about some day adding my own bit of input into this rich genre, and I get excited by what other people are adding along the way.


While you're waiting for the next book in the trilogy to come out (Dust & Decay), I highly recommend you check out Jonathan's website. There's a great interview up right now with Carrie Ryan (The Forest of Hands and Teeth and The Dead Tossed Waves) and Alden Bell (The Reapers are the Angels - which I hadn't heard of before! Amazon doesn't list it as a YA novel, but the protagonist is 15, so you can be sure I'm trying to get my hands on it now) giving their thoughts on all things zombie.


GIVEAWAY


This is the part you're waiting for, right?


After my Fall releases post last week, I got a lovely e-mail from Jonathan offering up a signed copy of Rot & Ruin for giveaway here on the blog! After responding that yes, I would love to host a giveaway, he upped the ante on his offer: not only will the book be signed, but he'll personalize the book for the winner! So instead of just his signature, the book will be signed just for you!


The contest is going to run for one week - I'll announce the winner on Friday, October 8th.


How to enter? Leave a comment in this entry with your e-mail address. And just to make this fun, answer the same question I posed to Jonathan and the other panelists last Sunday: do you prefer fast zombies or slow? 


The winner will be chosen randomly - as in my last giveaway the question is just to make the entries more interesting - and I'll send Jonathan the winner's e-mail address so the two of you can work out signing and shipping details. 

Review: Little Blog on the Prairie by Cathleen Davitt Bell

I wasn't a Little House on the Prairie fan as a kid. Admittedly, I don't recall actually giving the books or the TV show a chance, I was just pretty sure I wouldn't like them and went on my way. Luckily, the Little House allusions seem to be primarily confined to the title, so don't think you have to be a fan in some way to enjoy this thoroughly entertaining book.

Gen's family isn't big on "family time," as each family member seems to be going in her or his own direction at any given time. Her dad doesn't even get involved with vacation plans, preferring to leave all that to her mom - which is how the family gets signed up for an entire summer at Camp Frontier - an immersive summer experience where families live, dress and work like they're on the Wyoming frontier in 1890.

To 13 year old Gen, this is the end of the world. She's supposed to be hanging out with her best friends and practicing soccer all summer so she'll be prepared for the high school's team in the fall. So her mom bribes her - come to camp without complaint, and get a fancy cell phone at the end of the summer. Gen agrees, but the allure of the phone is too much - she sneaks it to camp, promising to text her friends for as long as the battery holds out (after all, there was no electricity on the frontier - where will she charge the phone?)

Several families have come together to live the frontier life for the summer - and none of the kids seem terribly fond of the idea, including Nora, the daughter of Camp Frontier's organizers who has to live every day like it's 1890. Almost immediately, Gen bonds with Ka (short for Kate, rhymes with Saw, her favorite movie), the goth chick from a family of perky blondes set adrift without her supply of black  hair dye to keep her own blond roots at bay. And then there's the camp heartthrob, Caleb, who has just about every girl in the camp swooning in his wake, but doesn't seem to realize this.

The complicated interpersonal relationships, as well as the hardships and indignities of life on the prairie (three words: outhouse at night), are faithfully recounted by Gen via text message - which her friends back on the outside are faithfully translating into a blog. And not just any blog, but an overnight blogging sensation that has repercussions all the way back to the 1890s life of Camp Frontier.

This is a lighthearted, feel good book, totally entertaining book that is going to appeal to a variety of middle grade and young adult readers. Gen is only 13, and keeps her thoughts about Caleb on a totally PG level - when she discovers an illicit "electricity shack" on the farm, her first thought is about charging her phone, not about getting Caleb alone. Her sarcastic attitude is just enough to keep readers used to edgier fare interested in her misadventures on the farm, while being tempered with an innate sweetness that keeps her from coming off as a spoiled teenager. Gen isn't happy about being at Camp Frontier, but she does love her family, and is willing to put on a good face at least for their sake for the duration of the adventure.

The book is filled with great supporting characters as well. Even the adults have some personality - I about cheered when the moms threatened a feminist uprising when the camp owner tries to keep the women from speaking (Gen's mom is the first to point out that Wyoming had given women the vote well before 1890, meaning that women would certainly be used to speaking in their communities if nowhere else). Of course, bringing up that women were expected to fulfill 19th century societal roles gets a bit uncomfortable if you follow it to its logical conclusion - if you expect women to keep quiet, what would happen if an African- or Asian-American family signed up? It seems like some aspects of 1890 are best left ignored, like the corsets that aren't required thanks to liability issues. The feminist uprising is extremely brief, just a quick opportunity for some educational humor, and clearly isn't meant to be dwelt on.

Another educational bit is the mini-moral slipped in by the end regarding technology and expectations of privacy. It's not heavy handed, over the top, or totally obvious, but hopefully it will get younger readers thinking about privacy issues regarding e-mails and text messages - namely that once a message leaves your phone or computer, you no longer have much control over who else might see it.

While I know the summer is winding down, there's still a few weeks left for most people, and this would make an excellent last minute addition to your summer reading list!

Nonfiction Monday Review: Hungry by Crystal Renn

Found via: Amelia Bloomer Project nomination

I'm not a big follower of fashion, but Crystal Renn's name pops up periodically in any feminist discussion of beauty and body image in popular culture, as she's one of the most successful "plus size" models working today (never mind the irony that she's in the size 10-12 range - the average size for American women today). I hadn't realized she had written a memoir, but when I saw it nominated for the Amelia Bloomer Project, I knew I had to give it a read.

Renn's memoir looks briefly at her pre-modeling life, living happily with her mother and grandmother who always encouraged her to be happy more than anything else. Despite the hints at some complicated family issues, it's clear that Renn had a happy childhood.

Everything changed for her at the age of 14 when a scouting model looked at her and said she could be a star - if she lost weight. Renn says she's always been a bit compulsive and something of a perfectionist, and the scout's statement was the impetus for her perfectionist tendencies to be directed towards her body. The bulk of the memoir focuses on Renn's struggle with anorexia as she works in modeling in New York City - trying to live the dream, but never finding much success, even as her agents tell her to lose more and more weight. When she hits rock bottom, she finds the strength to get out, get healthy, and re-emerge on the scene, healthier and more talented than ever.

I've been questioning some of the Amelia Bloomer project's nonfiction nominations recently - not because they were poor quality titles, but because they really didn't seem to fall into the "birth to 18" age range the list is built for. Renn, however, is barely out of her teens herself - she's 24 now - so much of the book focuses squarely on her teen years and is written in a way that is totally accessible to teens and adults.

Renn's story is absolutely terrifying. The dominant narrative of anorexia is about girls delusional enough to think they're fat even as they're wasting away. Renn knew she had anorexia and avoided doctors even when she developed other illnesses or injuries because she knew a doctor would take one look at her and declare her anorexic. So why did she keep starving herself? It was the only way she knew how to stay working.

This is more than just Renn's personal story, however. She makes pointed criticisms of the industry and a lot of the "reforms" that have been "suggested" in order to improve the health of the women working the runways of the most important fashion shows around the world. She also gives great insights into the world of fashion that should disabuse anyone of the notion that it's full-time glamorous.

Renn's story is a powerful, positive message. When she switches to plus-size work, Renn is told that there will be plenty of work in advertising, but very little high fashion work. Renn sets out to prove them wrong, and is obviously succeeding considering how often she's been on the covers of magazines around the world. She was in the news again late last month, coming forward with allegations that she'd been photoshopped to look dangerously thin. She acknowledges in the book even that photoshopping is a way of life in the industry - getting rid of zits and stray hairs are great since fashion photography isn't about creating a documentary - but it's clear she has a strong personal line and woe to the photographer that dares to cross it.

This will definitely be of interest to anyone who's curious about the pressures of the entertainment industry - for a lot of what goes on in modeling goes on for other performers as well. It's an inspiring story of overcoming a deadly illness and not letting anything hold you back.


This week's Nonfiction Monday is hosted by Three Turtles and their Pet Librarian. Be sure to stop by and see the other nonfiction posts this week!

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: God is in the Pancakes by Robin Epstein

Found via: Publisher's Weekly 5/10



While the recipe for pancakes is relatively simple (especially if you're like me and rely on Bisquick to provide two-thirds of your recipe), the recipe for a great novel is much more difficult. Robin Epstein, however, has taken disparate ingredients - coming of age, intergenerational relationships, a pinch of romance, and heavy questions of faith and life and death - to concoct a delicious story.


Grace is 15 and has just started her first real job as a candy striper at the local retirement home. The highlight of the position is befriend Frank Sands, who suffers from Lou Gherig's disease. He teaches Grace how to play cards and encourages her dry wit and humor and, unexpectedly, asks her to help him die.

Grace is bewildered and initially refuses. She has too much going on in her life with her overdramatic sister and her sleezy boyfriend, her dad who just walked out, and her best friend Eric is suddenly catching her romantic attention - along with the attentions of half of the girls in school. Plus, while he's lost the use of his legs, Mr. Sands with otherwise healthy, and medical miracles happen all the time, don't they?

As Mr. Sands takes a turn for the worse, Grace finally meets his wife Isabelle, and finds herself even more torn. Mr. Sands is obviously losing his fight, but how can she be responsible for the death of Izzy's husband? They are both her friends, and she doesn't want to hurt either of them. As she turns to a god she thought she abandoned when her father moved out, Grace finds herself wrestling with difficult decisions that are way over her head, but she is determined to handle them with all the maturity and strength she can.

I love, love, love Grace. Her voice is totally authentic, believably teen-aged without resorting to or relying on slang and pop culture references. Outside of her struggle and debate over euthanasia, her problems and the way she deals with them are totally relate-able.

Her friendships with Mr. Sands and Izzy, however, are what make this novel stand out. Neither of the adults talk down to Izzy or noticeably treat her as a child - which is perhaps why Mr. Sands feels it's okay to saddle the girl with such a burden as asking her to help him die. Grace keeps coming back to his request over the course of the novel, and there are no easy answers. It's impossible to say whether Grace's ultimate decision is the right one, but it's easy to understand why she felt it was the right one at the right time. Right up until the end, it was impossible to tell what Grace was going to decide.

The running motif of pancakes is fun - Grace used to share post-church pancake brunches with her father and sister, but that tradition falls by the wayside when her father walks out on the family. While Grace questions her faith in God, especially as he seems to refuse to give Grace any answers, she never questions pancakes' ability to make people feel better.

Review: The Mysterious Howling (The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place Bk 1) by Maryrose Wood

Found via: Bookends

Lynn and Cindy had me when they said this is "A Jane Eyre riff for the middle reader." Jane Eyre is one of the few classic novels I managed to actually finish reading while in college (the other was The Scarlet Letter). While I had some problems with the novel, I figured those problems wouldn't be showing up in a middle grade novel! And I was right. What does show up? A charming protagonist thrust into an impossible situation with more mysteries than she knows what to do with!

Penelope Lumley has just graduated from the Swanburne School for Poor Bright Females and is on her way to her first governess position at Ashton Place. Penelope was intrigued by the advertisement as it called for a young lady who worked well with animals. Penelope goes in thinking she might find a stable filled with ponies - and instead finds three feral children howling in the barn! Lord Frederick found the three children while hunting and has taken them home as trophies, naming the children Alexander, Beowulf and Cassiopeia Incorrigible. He placed the ad for a governess, hoping the children will be presentable to society in time for Christmas. The lady of the manor, Lady Constance, isn't so sure about this whole plan, but is going to try her hardest to make the best of the impossible situation, managing three wards, a governess and a husband who is far more interested in going out hunting then spending time with his new wife. Armed with a top notch classical education, Penelope gamely rises to the challenge - and doesn't even let herself be too disappointed when she realizes she has to teach the children how to wear clothes before she can start teaching Latin.

The omniscient narrator is a perfect blend between sounding very 19th century and also very 21st century. The narrator knows the reader isn't familiar with all of the details of Penelope's world and explains them quickly and humorously. The conversational tone, however, was very similar to Jane Eyre and the like. The narration also takes plenty of jabs at the 19th century governess novel genre, including Penelope shuddering at the thought of falling in love with the lord of the manor as she's imagining what life in Ashton Place may be like.

The three Incorrigibles are hilarious. They were raised by wolves and even after Penelope starts working with them, they only manage a tenuous grasp on English. The youngest, Cassiopeia, never quite masters pronouns and constantly refers to herself as "Cassawoof," making me giggle every time.

There are plenty of mysteries in this book - some of which are answered during the novel, and others which are only hinted at, setting up the series nicely. There's a complete story here, but I definitely want some more answers and look forward to the next book!

Review: Vintage Veronica by Erica S. Perl

Found via: Publisher's Weekly 3/1

I loooooooooove me some thrift stores. My mom knew she was raising me well when in 8th grade I went into some store at the mall (I think it was Express) and saw a pair of cut off shorts that were selling for some ridiculous price, and I asked why anyone would spend that sort of money when they could buy a pair of jeans for $3 at Goodwill and do it themselves? Almost all of my clothes shopping in high school was done at thrift stores; from my parents' house you can drive in a couple mile long loop and hit about 5 thrift stores without ever having to back track.

So when I ran across Vintage Veronica, which is set in a thrift store, I knew I had to read it. HAD TO.

Veronica picks up a summer job working at the local thrift store/consignment shop. On the first floor is Dollar-a-pound, where shoppers fill bags with clothes from a giant pile, paying a dollar for every pound of goodies they buy. The second level is home to the consignment shop, staffed by the Florons, aka Zoe and Ginger. Veronica works in the part of the store cordoned off and labeled Employees Only! Originally only an assistant, after her flaky boss takes off without warning it's now Veronica's job to decide what goes into the Dollar-a-Pound pile and what gets sent to consignment. Veronica's been cultivating her own unique fashion sense and an eye for bargains since she was a little girl, accompanying her father to flea markets, so this is essentially the perfect job for her. Fun clothes, and no annoying people to bother her.

Until Zoe and Ginger decide they want to be buddies with Veronica. She's hesitant at first - not only are Zoe and Ginger quintessential Mean Girls (they are constantly harassing the staff at Veronica's favorite donut shop next to the store), but Veronica is overweight and is suspicious that anyone would really like her. But Zoe and Ginger seem sincere, and convince Veronica to help them bust the mysterious of the enigmatic Lenny, the stock boy they are convinced is actually the head of some sort of vintage clothing crime ring.

But Veronica isn't cut out to be a super spy. As she's supposed to be spying on Lenny and reporting back to Zoe and Ginger, she quickly finds herself liking Lenny, first as a friend, and then potentially as more. And Lenny seems to like her, too, leaving Veronica to wonder who her true friends really are - the giggly girls who are out to get Lenny, or the shy, quiet boy who cares for sickly lizards and doesn't seem to notice that Veronica is fat.

This book is the definition of a cast of colorful characters. Aside from Veronica, Zoe, Ginger, and Lenny, there's also Bill, the stoner clerk in Dollar-a-Pound who had a thing for Veronica (and maybe still does), and the hoard that lines up in front of the store in order to ambush the pile. The store is also full of cats, which also made me incredibly happy, because I <3 my kitties.

Less colorful was Veronica's mom, who is a totally two-dimensional character. She's super health conscious, teaches yoga, and wears nothing but leotards and other workout gear, a stark contrast to Veronica, she of the reclaimed prom dresses, stubby pigtails, and lemon logs & mocha smoothies. She's so distant she has no idea where her daughter is working during the summer, and we only see her in brief glimpses at the end of the day, usually when Veronica is nuking a Lean Cuisine dinner.

While Veronica is snarky and sassy, she does fall into cliche territory as well sometimes. She's the fat girl that just doesn't have the self-control to stay away from the donut shop. She wears outlandish clothes that aren't all that flattering (though they are eye catching - taffeta dresses in a rainbow of colors worn with bowling shoes, for example). I wish a little more nuance had gone into developing her character.

Review: Fat Cat by Robin Brande

Found via: Galley Cat

Oh boy, do I ever have conflicting feelings over this title. I'm not sure exactly what I expected from this (it was starred in my Google Reader before I'd started keeping track of what I was looking forward to reading and why in my TBR spreadsheet), but for every time this book scored a hit, there was another glaring miss that had my literally cringing.

Cat has one goal for her Special Topics in Research Science class - come up with a project so awesome she'll beat the pants off of Matt McKinney, her rival since the seventh grade. Cat thinks she has the perfect plan: replicate the diet and lifestyle of early hominids as closely as possible, and observe the results, using herself as a test experiment. Minimal electricity usage, walking instead of driving, and eating only the foods that would have been available to homo erectus. A killer project with a side bonus: Cat is sure she'll look fabulous by the end of the school year.

What she doesn't count on is suddenly becoming something of a boy magnet. And not just any boys. Hot boys. Athletic boys. Boys that seem to be making Matt more than a little jealous. Not that Cat cares what Matt thinks; he betrayed her terribly back in the seventh grade, and finally having a science project that beats him at the science fair will be worthy payback.

But living a la homo erectus isn't always easy, and navigating the murky world of boys and romance is difficult for anyone. The pressure is rising for Cat, not only to keep up with her project, but to keep the boys at bay long enough for her to truly heal her broken heart.

Okay, yes, that broken heart bit makes me gag a little bit too, but it's a running theme throughout this book.

Let me get the cringe-inducing moments out of the way so I can end on a positive note, okay?

First of all: almost all of the boys in this book suck. Brande gives us two guys who date Cat who don't understand the meaning of "no." Which is okay on the surface - it gives the story dramatic tension and it's good to see that Cat knows exactly where her boundaries are and knows how to say "no." But then her best friend comes along and doesn't care that these boys don't respect her boundaries. One boy grabs Cat's rear end in the hallway, and she forcefully tells him to knock it out. He does it again and she shoves him against a locker (which made me cheer). But when he comes back with a flower and begging for forgiveness, not only does Cat accept but her best friend tells her she really needs to give the guy another chance.

The best friend, Amanda, is actually the source of a lot of my tension with the novel, because while she is funny and smart and a great poet and seems to love Cat, she's also super annoying and lacks some fundamental respect for Cat. She repeatedly tells Cat that she's going to grow up to be a bitter old hag if she doesn't date in high school and constantly lures Cat away from the tenets of her science experiment. If it had happened once or twice I would have overlooked it, but Amanda never seems willing to compromise her plans for the sake of Cat's experiment; instead it's always Cat trying to rationalize breaking her own rules. Ugh, ugh, ugh.

Because most of the time I really liked Cat. She's unapologetically smart and knows what she wants in life (well, as much as you can really know at 17). I loved it when she said early on in the novel that dating was not what she wanted to do right now - she wasn't ruling out the possibility of romance and love and marriage in the future, but she doesn't feel she needs to rush into things. Also, over the course of the novel, she becomes much more athletic, and revels in it:

Because there was a time in my life, before Willie Martin pointed out how fat I was, that I would have known I could beat those two people and anyone else in the pool. Maybe not an Olympic swimmer or someone twice my age with longer arms and legs, but definitely someone my own size, Willie Bleeping Martin included.

Because I was good. Really good. I was a strong girl, and I loved my sport. I loved competing (203).

I also liked how Cat's weight was handled in the novel. The only specific sizes we are told is that she would one day like to be a size eight and her rapidly shrinking bra size. We don't see anyone shame Cat for her weight except for episodes in her past like from Willie Bleeping Martin, and we're never told what her weight or jeans size is before or after the experiment starts. I thought it was a tactful way to avoid shaming or embarrassing a reader who is larger than a size eight.

I really enjoyed seeing how Cat's experiment evolved over the course of the novel; there were some interesting scientific theories proposed. Of course, I also felt sometimes that the reader was being lectured about nutrition through Cat's dietitian. Also, WTF, dietitian, saying that cutting out pop and chocolate will reduce acne? Because I'm pretty sure that myth has been debunked. I really hope the rest of the science in the book wasn't flawed like that, because there's some interesting stuff in here.

So Fat Cat gets points for having a smart, athletic, not-skinny protagonist, but loses a lot of points for her unhelpful best friend. I think what was most disappointing about that best friend is that one of Brande's books made the 2008 Amelia Bloomer Project list. While Cat definitely has some feminist cred, the boys and Amanda combined cancel out those positive points.

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: Tales of the Madman Underground by John Barnes

Found via: BBYA 2010 nominations
Winner: Printz Honor 2010

This book is 532 pages long and it covers one week in 1973. Harry Potter books that are almost twice that length cover an entire school year. Of course, the Harry Potter books skip over vast periods of time in the course of the school year, whereas almost every minute of every day is accounted for here.

In other words, this is a rather detailed book.

Tales of the Madman Underground starts on September 5, 1973, the first day of Karl Shoemaker's senior year of high school and the start of Operation Be Fucking Normal. A tall order for someone who's been in therapy since middle school thanks to his dad's death from cancer and his mom's reputation as a drunken slut.

But Karl has a plan for senior year: if he can be normal one day at a time (a lesson learned from his Alcoholics Anonymous meetings), he can last long enough into the semester to make sure none of his teachers recommend he return to therapy.

But being normal is harder than it looks. After all, if you've never been normal, how do you know what you're supposed to do? Should he continue to hang out with all of his old friends, his fellow therapy members that make up the so-called Madman Underground? Or should he turn his back on all of them, including his best friend since forever? Matters are complicated by the appearance of Marti, a new girl with frizzy hair and no boobs - definitely not the sort of girl a "normal" guy would be hanging out with.

Plus there are some parts of Karl's life that are decidedly not normal, like working five jobs in order to ensure he and his mom can continue to eat. And having to hide that money in various stashes around the house so his mom can't find it and use it to go on a booze and pot bender while looking for her next hook up.

Karl has to balance home and friends, pushy and obnoxious teachers, small town and internal prejudices. All in his quest to be fucking normal.

This book was a little tough to get into, because I kept waiting for something to happen. Nothing major ever does, so if you're looking for a mind-bending thriller, look elsewhere. This is very much a week-in-the-life book - it doesn't even appear to be an out of the ordinary week, aside from Karl's attempts to be "normal" and the introduction of new-girl Marti to the small town school. Less than half way through however I began to enjoy the ride for what it was, liking this glimpse into the past.

Barnes deals deftly with a lot of the social inequity of the time. Casual racism and homophobia run rampant in this small Ohio town, even among friends. This isn't the wild and crazy and totally open 70s we often think about, but small town 70s where people looked upon the changes going on in the wider world with suspicion. Karl's mother is a total hippie in some ways, calling Karl a "special child of the universe" and saying that the age of Aquarius truly is coming upon them, but it's also clear most of the town thinks she's a nut.

I would imagine it might be hard for younger readers to comprehend the large amount of casual abuse in this story - lots of kids are regularly beaten by their parents or sexually abused by family members or locked out of their houses, and "everyone" knows about these incidents but no one really tries to stop them. They just throw the victims in therapy and call it good. The only reason I could buy it is Lightsburg, Ohio doesn't sound too different from the town my parents grew up in and Mom used to tell me some sad stories about kids showing up in school with black eyes and broken arms and everyone would know it was the mom or dad hitting the kid, but it was considered a private family issue. So kudos to Barnes for capturing a lot of the small but major tragedies of the time.

I couldn't tell you exactly why this was a Printz honor book. It's certainly very good, but I don't think I'm the best judge of what makes a Printz-worthy book. I tried reading Jellicoe Road after it won last year, and couldn't even get a third of the way through it. I can definitely, however, see this appealing to adult readers of YA, as the style feels very much like adult literary fiction. At least the little adult literary fiction I've read - have to admit, my reading tastes are definitely stalled at where they were when I was 16.

On the jacket copy: I have no idea why the jacket is designed with big old censor bars. It kind of implies the book is going to be about censorship in some way. There's a brief point about a teacher refusing to censor his teaching of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (so long as you're quoting the book he sees no problem with the racial slurs - it's when you call another person that outside of a literary context that it becomes a problem). So the gratuitous and obvious censoring of the jacket copy comes a little bit out of nowhere.

Review: Turning Japanese by Cathy Yardley

Found via: Galley Cat

Here's one of those rare moments where I step outside of my comfort zone and read something "age appropriate" - a book for grown ups!

But don't get too excited - I bet this would have a lot of appeal for older high school students as well, especially those who love manga and Japanese culture.

Lisa wins the chance of a life time after entering a manga contest at San Francisco's Comic Convention (does anyone actually call it that? I'm pretty sure it's just Comic Con these days): she's going to be an intern for a year in Tokyo with a manga publisher. At first Lisa is hesitant - she hates to travel and has a comfortable life in upstate New York with an overachieving boyfriend and the friends she's had since high school. But they all gang up on her (in a mostly loving way) and convince her to make the journey to Japan.

Lisa is half-Japanese, but has rarely ventured outside of her small town in New York, and finds herself more than a bit lost in Japan's culture. Intellectually she knows it's a very polite culture where individualism is discouraged in some ways, but it's a whole different ball game actually living there! She has to deal with a crazy host family, a demanding boss, and an internship that is nothing like what she thought it was going to be.

Sometimes Lisa's lack of a backbone and the other characters' contributions to this got on my nerves - I really wanted to yell at her sometimes that she wasn't being the jerk, her boyfriend was (oh man I couldn't stand that guy). But her time in Japan made for some fascinating reading - I bet teen readers would love Lisa's host family, which consists of two overburdened parents, a twenty-something woman who parties all night and sleeps all day, and a 12 year old boy who has everyone else so under his thumb that he does nothing but play video games. Literally - he doesn't even go to school just because he doesn't want to!

I also really enjoyed that, unlike a lot of other "chick lit" that I've read, finding "the one" wasn't the point of the book. Yes there is the aforementioned jerk boyfriend, but since he's literally on the other side of the world Lisa finds lots of other things to occupy her time. It ends up being a great story about a young woman taking risks and finding out who she is and what makes her happiest.

Review: Reality Check by Peter Abrahams

Found via: BBYA 2010 nominations

It took a little searching to confirm my hunch, but Peter Abrahams started his writing career with mystery novels for adults. Then apparently he took a turn into young-teen mystery writing before producing Reality Check, a mystery novel for older teens. I couldn't quite put my finger on it, but the tone and writing style of this novel definitely evoked more of an "adult" novel than a YA novel. There was a bit of...restraint in the narration, that's the best I can put it. A restraint we don't usually see in YA novels. There's always a bit of distance between our narrator and what's happening in the novel.

At the beginning of his junior year, the most important recruiting season for college football, Cody sustains a potentially career-ending knee injury; at the very least he's going to be on the bench for the rest of the season. What a way to start the year. To add insult to his injury, his rich girlfriend, Clea, has been shipped off to an East Coast boarding school, in part to keep her away from the decidedly-working-class Cody. Cody breaks up with Clea before she leaves, drops out of school, and settles into a job with a local landscaper - and halfway figures that's going to be the rest of his life, since without football college is definitely not an option.

But not too long after she leaves, Clea is reported missing out at her school. Cody, despite being unsure what his feelings for Clea are, knows he needs to go out there to help in the search. He drives from Colorado and Vermont, hiding who he really is and his relationship with Clea, and joins in the search, even taking a job at the school in the horse stables to stay close to the action.

Out at the school is a cast of suspicious characters, from the eccentric stable hand and Clea's brooding new boyfriend, two rival law enforcement agents, who seem to want conflicting things from Cody. He doesn't know who to trust - or whether Clea is even still alive.

This is a compact, solid mystery novel, though I felt the ending fell short in the same way that School for Dangerous Girls did - there's a distinct climax, and then a very rushed description of the aftereffects of that climax. Like once the mystery is solved, there's no point in reading any more book. Yes, the journey and figuring out "whodunnit," or even what "it" was, is the point of the story, but I still prefer a satisfying, complete conclusion to the story.

Review: Going too Far by Jennifer Echols

Found via: BBYA 2010 nominated titles

The annotation for this title reads "Meg is the blue haired girl in a small town, John is the cop who picks her up one night, and the relationship that develops causes all sorts of problems."

I was adding this to my library request list at "blue haired girl," because that was me, from 5th grade through high school. Okay, it was more often green, and only a streak, as opposed to a whole head like Meg does (my hair was waist length - no way Mom was going to help me turn all of that green). And much to my parents' relief, I was never picked up by the cops at night, but I still felt, just from this annotation, that Meg was a girl after my own heart.

And I was right: I loved Meg throughout the book, even when she made it hard to be lovable.

Meg is counting the days until she can get the hell out of her little Alabama town, away from her parents who seem hell bent on shackling her to their little restaurant. She's just days away from spring break of her senior year - a spring break that is going to take her to see the ocean for the first time in her life - when she, her boyfriend, and the class valedictorians are picked up by the cops on the forbidden railroad tracks. Eric, Meg's boyfriend, gets let off easy, thanks to his father's money, but Meg and her friends are sentenced to ride with the various emergency departments for the week of spring break, so they can learn their actions have consequences.

Meg is assigned to ride with the police for the week, specifically with the enigmatic, handsome, and young Officer John Avery. He's the opposite of Meg in every way: serious, clean cut, and with a pathological need to follow and enforce the rules. But despite this, and despite all of her better judgment, Meg feels a connection, and wonders if she might be falling for the police officer, and if he might be falling for her.

Meg and John were both great, well rounded characters. Echols teases out the hints about the darker sides of these two: both Meg and John have demons to contend with, and neither is going to show their hand to the other unless pushed. Echols taunts us with hints about what makes these two tick, but withholds the payoff until it has the greatest impact on the story, the characters, and the reader. It's an extremely rewarding read.

I have just one complaint: who the heck photoshopped the cover? Check it out on Amazon - that is the worst 'shop of an eyebrow ring I've ever seen. Would it have been so hard to find a pierced model? Or give her a clip on hoop ring? Or leave off the ring entirely, since I don't recall Meg ever wearing an eyebrow ring? I usually don't give covers a second look, but this one made me cringe every time I looked at it.

Review: Response by Paul Volponi

Sometimes you want a long, meandering book with a zillion different plot points, intricate character interactions, and pages and pages of luscious descriptions.

And sometimes you just want to get to the point.

Paul Volponi's Reponse is a slim book with a one track mind. One night Noah and his friends decide to cross into a predominantly white neighborhood and steal a car. Before they can attempt it, however, they are chased by three white teenagers and Noah is viciously attacked with a baseball bat. The white boys claim they were protecting their neighborhood and their property but the city suspects otherwise and begins a hate crime investigation.

And that's pretty much all there is to the book. There are some very short detours into Noah's personal life - his grandmother's failing health, dealing with his six-month-old daughter and mother, a soul-killing job at McDonald's with a racist boss, and life at their racially mixed school, where most students are on Noah's side but a vocal minority insists on wearing T-shirts pleading for the jailed white kids' freedom.

But these scenes rarely last for more than a page - the point of this book is a hate crime was committed and we're going to get a brief glimpse at what the judicial process is for prosecuting that crime. How does it feel when a sentence is reduced for "cooperating"? Do the perpetrators deserve the full sentence?

The book moves at a breakneck pace, which made me feel like a lot of possible emotional impact was lost. Lots of relationships could have been fleshed out. On the other hand, the lack of distractions from the main plot could make this an excellent novel for "reluctant readers" - what my mom would call a low level/high interest book: someone in high school wouldn't have to be reading at "high school level" in order to enjoy and understand this book.

Review: Boost by Kathy Mackel

I hate it when books hit you over the head with an Important Message. And I kind of hate how annoyed I get. I was going to start this post off being really snarky about the message of this book, but really I can't get too snarky about it. Because the message is an important one, but dang does this book get really heavy handed about delivering the message.

After her parents declare bankruptcy, Savvy and her family move from their huge home in New Mexico to live with Savvy's aunt on her farm in Rhode Island just before Savvy starts 8th grade. Savvy lives for basketball - to her it is the one thing that makes life worth living - and she and her new friend Gonzo decide to take a risk and try out for the 18 and under basketball league, rather than sticking with the 16 and under league that they were shoo-ins for.

Savvy was a bit of a basketball superstar back in New Mexico. She's 6'3" at 13 and still growing and was used to carrying the team by herself. Here she has a coach that is determined to make sure she learns how to use her natural talent, while also balancing a team that suddenly has two eighth graders on it, when previously it had all been high school girls.

Complicating Savvy's life are her aunt and her sister. Shortly after the move her aunt breaks her ankle and is in the hospital for months. The same evening, the sheep dog dies, leaving the flock of sheep unprotected. Because her mother is working long hours, her father is injured and slaving away over going back to college, and Callie, Savvy's sister, isn't good for much of anything, Savvy takes over caring for the sheep until a new guard dog can be trained.

Callie seems to be your typical spoiled-brat sister - only this time instead of being a spoiled younger sister, she's actually several years older than Savvy. Keep reminding yourself of that, because here Savvy acts much older than your average eighth grader, while it's very hard to believe that Callie is the oldest child, yet alone the oldest and in high school. Callie can't handle anything difficult it seems; she freezes up when their aunt is injured, and spends her summer laying in her room eating junk food, even though she's normally a star cheerleader.

As competition in both of their sports start to heat up, both Savvy and Callie feel the pressure to somehow "boost" their games. While Savvy has a lot of raw talent, she isn't always the best team player and often relies on staying in her comfort zone, rather than focusing on making herself the best player she can be. Callie, meanwhile, is determined to stay on the top of the cheerleading pyramid (figuratively and literally) and, after falling off the healthy wagon over the summer, seems willing to go to any extreme necessary to get back in the game.

The sports scenes in this book seem to be excellently done. This book really seems like it was written for athletes, because no attempt is made to explain the basketball jargon (despite the move being used by someone in almost every game, I have no idea what the hell a "full court press" is). For sports aficionados, that's probably a plus - for the rest of us, the game details don't matter too much.

Lots of other parts of the book came off as extremely awkward and forced, right from the beginning. Did Savvy's aunt really need to be so completely incapacitated and relegated to a tiny, tiny supporting role? Savvy often tells us that her aunt would do something cool, but we never see even a glimmer of that sort of spunk in the woman. Please see Last Exit to Nowhere for an awesome example of not only a tough old woman (who can't do as much around her property as she used to), but plausible ways to get teenagers to take on responsibilities.

And Callie was just a spoiled brat throughout the entire book, leaving it up to Savvy to act as the parent, even telling her parents how they should be treating Callie. Callie actually reminded me a lot of Marlene in Suite Scarlett - except that Callie is 16, not six, and not a cancer survivor. So in Suite Scarlett it made sense that Marlene's parents would let her walk all over them in some ways, but there really doesn't seem to be a reason for Callie's brattiness.

And then there's the Drugs sub-plot that is treated with all the subtlety of an after-school special (which is now officially a category on this blog - one that a book should not strive to be in). The worst was probably when a doctor actually gave Savvy a lecture on what steroids do to the person who uses them. And then Savvy goes and Googles for more information. This is probably the first book I've read that deals explicitly with steroid use among young women, but did it need to be so heavy handed about it?

And even the heavy-handedness could have been balanced out if more of the characters and plot had been fleshed out. We never really get to know anyone in the book other than Savvy, and the main focus of the book is definitely the basketball games, with short detours for Savvy's reflection while she's helping with the sheep, or another blowup with Callie. When everything is fairly one-dimensional, it really makes the worst parts stand out because there's nothing of nuance to distract you.

Review: Last Exit to Normal by Michael Harmon

Ahhh. It's like the universe heard my rant the other day about gay characters in young adult fiction. While the gay men in Last Exit to Normal don't entirely fulfill what I was specifically asking for (YA books with gay protagonists that aren't about how it's ohmigosh SO HARD to be gay), it's certainly a step in the right direction and a unique addition to YA LGBT lit (gotta love that alphabet soup, huh?)

Last Exit to Nowhere doesn't spare any subtlety in relaying the basic relationships of the main characters. 17 year old Ben begins narrating the novel by telling us about the incident when he was 14 when his father came out as gay. According to Ben, this revelation absolutely destroyed the family. His mom picked up and left, and Ben began acting out - smoking pot, drinking, getting into trouble with the law - in his frustration over something he saw as his dad's fault. Ben has a poignant line that comes up several times throughout the book to explain his anger at his father: the only reason Ben exists is because his father was too much of a coward to acknowledge his sexual orientation, and instead lied to himself and his family for years.

After a particularly egregious run-in with the law, Ben's father and his partner, Edward, decide that the only way Ben will truly become rehabilitated is if he's completely removed from the bad influences in Spokane, Washington and the whole family moves back to Edward's rural hometown in Montana.

Life isn't easy back in Montana for anyone. The men move in with Edward's mother, a tough old broad who is set in her ways and isn't afraid to let Ben know it. But ultimately, while she doesn't agree with Edward's lifestyle "choice" she does love her son and is willing to respect Ben provided that he show her the proper respect first. More difficult, though not unexpected, are the small town bigotries about a skateboard punk from the big city and his two dads. Ben is used to being hassled over having a gay father, but that doesn't mean he likes the situation.

What he dislikes more, however, is the situation at his new next-door neighbor's house. On their first day in Rough Butte, Mr. Hinks comes over and tells the newcomers that he doesn't have any particular problem with them, but they're to stay away from him and his son. But after Ben witnesses Mr. Hinks beating his son with a belt, Ben can't stay away. He quietly and semi-secretly befriends 11 year old Billy, determined to help the boy out in any way he can.

Along the way, Ben begins to learn what it's like to put in a hard day's work, and what it truly means to be a man.

I absolutely loved how the relationship between Ben and his dad was portrayed here, even though it's an incredibly painful and awkward relationship at times. Ben has a lot of frustration and anger built up towards his father, and perhaps it's not all unjustified. But perhaps best of all, Ben's father isn't just a gay dad - it's not like Ben's angry just because his father is gay. To me, it seemed like Ben's dad did everything right that he possibly could - after he came out, he put himself and Ben in therapy, he read all the parenting books he could find about raising troubled teenagers, etc. On the other hand, however, it's very easy to see why all of this would be semi-infuriating to Ben and cause him to lash out more.

I also really liked Edward. He's cheeky and snarky, and definitely gets along with Ben (who is also often cheeky and snarky), but then at other times he steps back and is definitely in the role of step-parent. It's a great blend that works well to build him into a well-rounded character and not just a flat "Boyfriend" character.

This is a book that is going to ring true with a lot of teenagers, even ones that don't have gay parents. Ben's frustration with his father is something universal, and watching their relationship evolve is a story a lot of us need to see.

Double Whammy Review: Uprising by Margaret Peterson Haddix & Ashes of Roses by Mary Jane Auch

These reviews are going up together because they both deal with the same subject: the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire of March 25th, 1911. When I saw that Margaret Peterson Haddix had a new book out about the fire (and the strike that preceded it), I knew I had to read it, and remembering how much I liked Ashes of Roses when it first came out, I picked that up as well so I could read them together. I blame the former wanna-be English teacher in me.

Uprising focuses on the lives of three young women in New York City, two young immigrant women who work at the Triangle Factory (Yetta, a Jewish immigrant from Russia and Bella, an Italian immigrant fresh off the boat), and a third woman, Jane the disillusioned daughter of a millionaire, who vows to help the Triangle Factory workers in any way possible when they organize a strike against the unfair - and dangerous - labor practices at the factory.

The story is introduced to us by a Mrs. Livingston, who is telling the story to the now-grown daughter of one of the factory's owners and who can somehow reveal the inner lives and knowledge of three different women (while the book is narrated in the third person, the chapters alternate between focusing on Yetta, Bella and Jane). The story starts as Bella arrives in America to begin her new life, working in the Triangle factory so she can send money back to her starving mother and siblings in Italy. Bella doesn't know a word of English, so when a crowd of workers spontaneously get up and leave in the middle of the day, Bella goes out with them, not knowing she is participating in the beginning of The Uprising of 20,000. Yetta, another of our protagonists, is one of the leaders of the strike - she and her sister Rahel are active in the burgeoning union and Yetta is one of the union's most fervent devotees.

As the strike continues, Bella, desperate for money and not understanding the meaning of strikes or unions, continues to work as a scab, while Yetta walks the picket lines daily for months. Jane, who feels useless and adrift in a society that only values her for what assets she could bring her father by marrying a wealthy man, becomes one of many wealthy women who support the poor strikers in any way they can, from standing between the strikers and police (the police won't hesitate to beat poor immigrant women to a pulp, but avoid the society ladies as much as possible) to bringing food to the strikers and posting money to bail them out of prison.

The three women's friendship is cemented when Bella receives a letter from home, which she can't read. Jane, who knows some Italian, reads the letter to Bella and translates it for Yetta, who speaks Yiddish and English. Jane's family recoils at the thought of the well-bred young woman fraternizing with such lowly women, but Jane is determined to stick with the working girls, even after the strike is over and work continues as usual at the Triangle Factory - until the day of the deadly fire.

Ashes of Roses has a much narrower focus. While Uprising follows three women and covers events around the factory from the beginning of the strike in 1909 through the fire in 1911, Ashes of Roses focuses on one Irish immigrant, Rose, and the whole book covers only about a month and a half - Rose's first terrible week or so in America with her mother and sisters, and then another few weeks with just one sister as they live in a room rented to them by a Triangle factory worker and union organizer, Gussie, and her father. After a week of learning how to use a sewing machine under Gussie's tutelage, Gussie brings Rose with her to the factory to begin work. Two weeks later, on pay day, the infamous fire breaks out.

I remember when I first read Ashes of Roses, I found the scene of the fire gripping. This time around, not so much. It's still a compelling account of the tragedy, but for me it no longer seemed quite so action-packed.

Not that Uprising had a fire scene that was any better. Overall I think that Ashes of Roses is the stronger of the two books, especially for older readers, because Uprising had way too many illogical moments for me to palate. The women that have absolutely no language in common seem to have an awfully good idea of what the other is saying (only occasionally does the caveat "She must have been saying something like..." appear), and Mrs. Livingston seems to have a psychic link to the women who died in the fire in order to be able to convey their last moments so vividly. Both books also have some clunky foreshadowing - lots of conversations and observations about fire escapes on buildings and how the newly immigrated women are awestruck by them.

Uprising is more concerned with painting a larger historical picture as Haddix's fictional characters often see real historical figures of the early labor movement. Haddix also includes a very substantial author's note at the end, giving further background into the story and her research process (ironically, she begins her author's note by saying she hates notes in other books that say 'this was real, but this wasn't' as she prefers to do the research herself...but then her note goes on to explain every historical person and event that appears in her book!). Auch's author's note is shorter, but then her book also doesn't cover as wide of a time as Uprising. Both books do cover some of the same experiences however, including both Bella and Rose working in flower-making sweatshops and, of course, the Russian Jewish union leaders that feature prominently in both books.

Sometime soon, when I'm not buried under wedding planning materials, I'm heading down to the building that once housed the factory - as Yetta points out in Uprising, the building was designed to be fireproof and it was. It still stands today and is a National Historic Landmark.