Teen

Review: Freakboy by Kristin Elizabeth Clark

| Tasha

freakboy

Freakboy by Kristin Elizabeth Clark

On the surface, Brendan has it all together.  He has a hot girlfriend, he wrestles on the high school team, and he has a great younger sister who adores him.  It is under the surface that Brendan struggles, because he feels like a boy inside sometimes and other times like his entire body is wrong and that he is a girl.  As Brendan’s life spirals, he meets Angel, a transgendered teen who now lives as a girl.  The two bond over video game playing, carefully stepping around the larger issues for a long time.  But Brendan’s spiral turns darker and more destructive and having one understanding friend may not be enough to save him from himself and his despair.

Told entirely in verse, this book captures the world of a teen experiencing a different gender than the one he was born with.  The story is told in three voices:  Brendan, his girlfriend Vanessa, and Angel.  In this way, readers get to see not only Brendan’s personal story and evolution, but also the way that it impacts people he loves.  Angel serves as a vision of a possible future that is positive and yet complicated. 

Clark doesn’t shy away from anything in this book.  Sex and sexuality are discussed frankly and with beautiful details that add radiance and wonder.  She also does not make things easy.  Gender is shown in all of its complexity and as a full spectrum.  One brilliant character is Vanessa, a girl who is a high school wrestler but also one that is flirtatious and womanly.  Readers may not realize it at first, because Clark handles it gently, but Vanessa speaks to her own form of gender expression.

A powerful blazing novel that gives insight into teens struggling with gender variance and also offers a book where those teens can see themselves and a way forward.  Appropriate for ages 14-18.

Reviewed from copy received from Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

GoodReads Nominees for Best Young Adult Fantasy & Science Fiction

| Tasha

Join in voting on the 2013 Opening Round to select the Best Young Adult Fantasy & Science Fiction book on GoodReads.  Voting in this first round runs until November 9th.

The 5th Wave (The 5th Wave, #1) Allegiant (Divergent, #3) Clockwork Princess (The Infernal Devices, #3)

The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey

Allegiant by Veronica Roth

Clockwork Princess by Cassandra Clare

Crown of Midnight (Throne of Glass, #2) The Darkest Minds (The Darkest Minds, #1) The Elite (The Selection, #2)

Crown of Midnight by Sarah J. Maas

The Darkest Minds by Alexandra Bracken

The Elite by Kiera Cass

The Indigo Spell (Bloodlines, #3) Light (Gone, #6) Opal (Lux, #3)

The Indigo Spell by Richelle Mead

Light by Michael Grant

Opal by Jennifer L. Armentrout

Prodigy (Legend, #2) Requiem (Delirium, #3) Scarlet (Lunar Chronicles, #2)

Prodigy by Marie Lu

Requiem by Lauren Oliver

Scarlet by Marissa Meyer

Steelheart by Brandon Sanderson Through the Ever Night (Under the Never Sky, #2) Unravel Me (Shatter Me, #2)

Steelheart by Brandon Sanderson

Through the Ever Night by Veronica Rossi

Unravel Me by Tahereh Mafi

GoodReads Nominees for Best Young Adult Fiction

| Tasha

Join in voting on the 2013 Opening Round to select the Best Young Adult Fiction book on GoodReads.  In this first round, there are 15 novels to choose from:

14813667 Dare You To (Pushing the Limits, #2) The Distance Between Us

Ali’s Pretty Little Lies by Sara Shepard

Dare You To by Katie McGarry

The Distance Between Us by Kasie West

Eleanor & Park Fangirl Game (Jasper Dent #2)

Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell

Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell

Game by Barry Lyga

If You Find Me Just One Day (Just One Day, #1) The Moon and More

If You Find Me by Emily Murdoch

Just One Day by Gayle Forman

The Moon and More by Sarah Dessen

Out of the Easy Perfect Scoundrels (Heist Society, #3) Rose Under Fire

Out of the Easy by Ruta Sepetys

Perfect Scoundrels by Ally Carter

Rose Under Fire by Elizabeth Wein

This Is What Happy Looks Like Two Boys Kissing United We Spy (Gallagher Girls, #6)

This Is What Happy Looks Like by Jennifer E. Smith

Two Boys Kissing by David Levithan

United to Spy by Ally Carter

Review: Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell

| Tasha

fangirl

Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell

Cath knows exactly what she is.  She’s a fan of Simon Snow, a magical series of books that rival Harry Potter in popularity.  She’s a twin.  She’s a college freshman.  And she does not want to go out and meet people or party.  She’s much happier in her dorm room writing fan fiction about Simon Snow and his arch nemesis Baz, where she has reworked them as a steamy gay couple.  Cath’s twin also attends the same college, but Wren does not want to be seen much together and is completely into the college party scene.  So Cath spends much of her time alone or with her prickly new roommate, eating protein bars and peanut butter because the dining hall freaks her out.  Soon Cath will be asked to choose between writing fiction and writing Simon Snow fan fiction.  She will need to figure out how to let her Dad live his own life even though he is fragile.  But most of all, she needs to figure out how to live life on her own terms and have it be a life worth living.

Rowell does it again with this second book for teens.  Her writing voice is uniquely hers, so that her books could only be written by her.  She has a wonderful sense of humor that runs through her books, often popping up in the most serious of moments like humor often does in real life.  This book is complicated, about more than one expects from the title.  While it is about fan fiction, it’s also about so much more, including being a young writer, the writing process, siblings, broken families, and even first love.

Her characters are deep and worth spending time with.  Cath is remarkable both in her own issues that she carries with her but also in the way that she survives and flourishes.  Her early days at college echo many of my own fears, though I never succumbed to eating protein bars to survive.  Many high school students will see their own thoughts reflected here too.  It’s universal and makes Cath immediately relatable and lovable.  And I must comment again about how well Rowell writes romance and sex scenes.  Sex is part of life in her novels, something to be applauded, where no young women are made to feel slutty because they are sexually active.  It is beautifully handled.

I can’t wait to see where Rowell takes us next.  She is an author who belongs on lists alongside John Green and Gayle Forman.  Appropriate for ages 14-17.

Reviewed from library copy.

2013 Teens’ Top Ten

| Tasha

The Teens’ Top Ten is a list created by teens where teens nominate and choose their favorite books of the previous year.  Voting was held earlier in the year and the list was announced in late October.  Here are the top ten for 2013:

9634267 Code Name Verity Crewel (Crewel World, #1)

Butter by Erin Jane Lange

Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein

Crewel by Gennifer Albin

Every Day (Every Day, #1) The False Prince (The Ascendance Trilogy, #1) Insurgent (Divergent, #2)

Every Day by David Levithan

The False Prince by Jennifer A. Nielsen

Insurgent by Veronica Roth

Kill Me Softly Poison Princess (The Arcana Chronicles, #1) Pushing the Limits (Pushing the Limits, #1)

Kill Me Softly by Sarah Cross

Poison Princess by Kresley Cole

Pushing the Limits by Katie McGarry

The Raven Boys (The Raven Cycle, #1)

The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater

Review: Picture Me Gone by Meg Rosoff

| Tasha

picture me gone

Picture Me Gone by Meg Rosoff

Mila is spending her Easter break traveling from London to the United States with her father.  They plan to visit one of his oldest friends, Matthew, and his family.  But days before they are to set off, they hear that Matthew has gone missing and his wife has no idea where he might be but urges them to come anyway.  Mila has long known that she has exceptional perception skills: she can tell when someone is pregnant before they even know, can read emotions quickly and can easily gather clues from a room.  So when they arrive, she quickly realizes several things about Matthew and his family.  As she gets closer to solving the mystery, it all gets more complicated and soon Mila has to even question whether her father is being honest with her. 

Rosoff writes so beautifully.  She takes time here in the book to create a family dynamic in Mila’s father and mother that is strong and buoyant.  She also carefully builds the background of Mila’s life, so that readers will understand what a different situation Mila finds herself in.  A theme of translation runs through the entire novel.  Mila’s father is a translator of books, Mila has to translate to American English, Mila can understand the language of objects and read nuances into them, and there is also the language of pain and loss that permeates the book.  It is a theme that unites this book from one of a road trip into a quest.

Mila is a very intriguing character.  She is both wildly perceptive and then also unaware at times.  All of the characters in the book are fully developed and well drawn.  Her parents are real people with their own pasts and foibles.  I particularly enjoyed the almost brittle portrayal of Matthew’s abandoned wife who seems very one dimensional at first, but then at the end shows more of herself in a subtle way.

A virtuoso book that is rather quiet, very thoughtful and filled with insights just like Mila herself.  Appropriate for ages 13-15.

Reviewed from library copy.

Review: Engines of the Broken World by Jason Vanhee

| Tasha

engines of the broken world

Engines of the Broken World by Jason Vanhee

Merciful’s mother has finally died.  After years of growing more and more confused and cruel, she died as the weather grew colder and colder.  Merciful and her brother Gospel had wanted to bury her properly but the bitter weather had worsened and prevented them from digging a hole.  The snow came too, lashing the windows and keeping them from even venturing out to the barn to check on the animals.  So they put their mother under the table and went to bed.  The Minister, in an animal form, said prayers over her but was also firm in saying that she needed a proper burial.  Merciful is starting breakfast the next morning when she hears it, a voice she thought she would never hear again, singing her childhood song.

This novel is completely unique.  It is the story not of a post-apocalyptic world but of the days leading directly into an apocalypse.  Yet it is also a book that explores religion in a way that will certainly bother many people.  This is a religion beyond decay, heading into the final days, one that is flagging but still powerful.  Even better, it is one that is familiar to many of us.  Now add zombies to this complex world, and you are starting to understand why this book is so difficult to explain.

Against this dire setting, we have two young characters Merciful and Gospel.  The two do not get along, both approaching the world from different places.  Yet given the claustrophobic setting, the two are forced to see the truth about each other and their strengths.  It is this setting of a blizzard at the end of the world that makes this book so haunting.  Vanhee writes in a voice that we haven’t heard before either, he tinkers with perception of the characters, and he has created a book where you can’t trust much at all.  It is a wonderfully slippery book, that changes underneath you and turns into something unexpected.  Yet it is also filled with moments of great beauty and character. 

A horror book for teens, this is also something much more.  It is a beautifully written apocalypse that is harrowing, striking and powerful.  Appropriate for ages 13-15.

Reviewed from copy received from Henry Holt and Co.

Review: Reality Boy by A. S. King

| Tasha

reality boy

Reality Boy by A. S. King

Gerald became a reality TV star at age five when his mother brought in a television nanny to help him with his anger issues.  He had been putting holes in the walls.  He then started crapping around the house, often caught on camera.  Now Gerald is seventeen and still struggling with anger in his life.  His abusive older sister is back home, living in the basement.  His closer sister has gone to college in Scotland and never calls.  His mother and father are both entirely ineffective to stop anything.  Gerald spends much of his time in Gerland, a world filled with ice cream and candy, where no one is angry or mean.  But he can’t live there forever, and he has to return to the real world where he has no friends and people call him The Crapper.  It’s all too much sometimes for Gerald to handle, but he has to figure out a way to handle things that doesn’t have him escaping to a fantasy world or beating someone bloody.

I found this book to be entirely gripping.  The premise of a boy who is damaged by a reality show that is meant to help (at least on the surface) is very clever.  As the layers of the story are pulled back, one discovers who the true problem is.  King does this in surprising ways though flashbacks that continue to shock even though one thinks all is revealed.  This is a book that will do much to show teens that abuse by siblings and children happens to others.

King has created a wounded hero in Gerald.  He is stunted by his family, unable to grow up and unable to control his outbursts.  The reader aches for him, roots for him and yes is also frightened by his lack of control.  He is a teen caught by his past and unable to see a future.  One weakness of the book is the depiction of Gerald’s family.  They are not fully developed and the book loses something because of that, given that they are so much of the story of Gerald’s dysfunction. 

Gerald is a magnificent character, and the book is compelling and harrowing.  Appropriate for ages 15-18.

Reviewed from digital copy received from NetGalley and Little, Brown Books for Young Readers.

Review: Curtsies & Conspiracies by Gail Carriger

| Tasha

curtsies and conspiracies

Curtsies & Conspiracies by Gail Carriger

Released November 5, 2013.

This is the second book in Carriger’s young adult Finishing School series.  Sophronia is still getting into all sorts of trouble aboard the floating finishing school she attends.  It’s an unusual finishing school that prepares its students to be spies and agents as well as ladies of quality.  The girls are tested on their skills and Sophronia when is announced as getting record high scores, the other girls shun her.  Sophronia tries to fill the loss of her friendships by spending more time down in the boiler rooms, but soon she has other distractions.  Boys from Bunsen’s school are on board to travel with the female students to see the testing of a vehicle that will be able to travel the aether.  But there is more to it than that, and Sophronia is determined to figure out why and how the vampires and werewolves are involved.

I loved the first book in the series and was pleased to see the second one lived up to the promise of the first.  Second books in series often suffer from a sophomore slump, but that is not the case here.  In fact, this book builds on the premise of the first and adds much more to the information that the readers have of this steampunk world and its rules.  It also has just as much action, subterfuge and adventure as the first, all done in petticoats and ruffles.

The best part of these books is the humor that laces everything.  Sophronia is a girl who sees past the beauty of society and into the ridiculousness beyond it.  She is a strong protagonist whose wry takes on her own world make for sparkling humor.

For teens looking for steampunk novels, this series is a great one to recommend.  Appropriate for ages 13-16.

Reviewed from digital review copy received from Edelweiss and Little, Brown.