Teen

More Than This by Patrick Ness

| Tasha

more than this

More Than This by Patrick Ness

Released September 10, 2013.

After Seth drowns, bones smashed against rocks, muscles clenching in the icy water, he wakes up.  He is naked except for some bandages and very weak, but most disturbing, he is back in England at his childhood home.  A home that contains many of the worst memories of his life, except for his most recent ones.  There is no one else around, even the insects are silent and no birds or planes fly overhead.  Seth is completely alone in a world that is covered with dust and dirt.  Seth can’t sleep either because whenever he does, memories sweep over him, specifically ones that he would prefer to never remember and it’s as if he was living them all over again.  Is this the afterlife?  His own personal hell?  Seth has to first figure out how to survive and then start finding answers.

Ness creates a world, a hell, an afterlife, a future that is breathtakingly haunting.  It is profoundly empty, amazingly personal, and intensely confusing.  Readers who enter this book will be taken on a journey that is astonishing.  It is a puzzle that they will solve along with Seth and the answer will be astonishing.  I don’t want to give things away because the book is such a journey to the truth.

Ness writes powerfully of first loves, suicide and having to life with one’s decisions.  Seth’s death in the water is described in great detail, each moment captures, each pain explored.  As the memories flash into his head, the reader starts to understand what drove Seth to kill himself but also other deep truths about Seth and his life. 

Complex, gritty and profoundly beautiful, this book is a wonder of writing.  It is beyond inventive, taking readers to a place they never expected to find.  You are in the hands of a master storyteller here in one of his best books yet.  Appropriate for ages 14-17.

Reviewed from ARC received from Candlewick Press.

Booklist Top 10 Horror Books for Youth

| Tasha

This August Booklist has announced their picks for the top ten horror books for youth.  The books are from August 2011-July 2013.  Enjoy, if you dare!

The End Games Gravediggers: Mountain of Bones Henry Franks

The End Games by T. Michael Martin

Gravediggers: Mountain of Bones by Christopher Krovatin

Henry Franks by Peter Adam Salomon

In the Shadow of Blackbirds The Isle of Blood (The Monstrumologist, #3) Long Lankin

In the Shadow of Blackbirds by Cat Winters

The Isle of Blood by Rick Yancey

Long Lankin by Lindsey Barraclough

Scowler Ten

Scowler by Daniel Kraus

Ten by Gretchen McNeil

The Watcher in the Shadows (Niebla, #3) You Know What You Have to Do

The Watcher in the Shadows by Carlos Ruiz Zafron

You Know What You Have to Do by Bonnie Shimko

Review: Delilah Dirk and the Turkish Lieutenant by Tony Cliff

| Tasha

delilah dirk

Delilah Dirk and the Turkish Lieutenant by Tony Cliff

Released August 27, 2013.

Enter a new heroine who is funny, adept and can kick your butt.  Delilah Dirk comes crashing into the life of Selim, the Turkish Lieutenant and merrily takes over his world.  Delilah has adventured all around the world and is now looking to steal some valuable ancient scrolls from a Sultan in Constantinople.  With her flying boat, she saves Selim from certain death.  Then it is on to more adventures, including evading pirates, jumping off a disintegrating aqueduct, and fighting everyone who is after her, and everyone is.  Delilah loves the freedom and action of her life on the road, but Selim craves quiet times with friends.  Readers on the other hand will love Delilah and Selim both as well as the humor and adventure that make this one rollicking read.

Cliff has created a wonderful heroine.  She manages to be feminine and dashing at the same time.  Her outfit is skirted and flowing but not confining.  It reveals her beauty, but not her endowments.  She is great fun and the role reversal of the man who is the reluctant adventurer and the woman who adores it turns stereotypes on their heads.  The story both honors tradition with its setting in Turkey, but also adds a lot of new flavors like the flying boat.  It makes for a book that is filled with surprises.

A great pick for graphic novel fans and those just discovering the genre.  Delilah is a heroine who will take you on an amazing adventure.  Let’s hope there are many more to come!  Appropriate for ages 10-14.

Reviewed from copy received from First Second.

Review: Two Boys Kissing by David Levithan

| Tasha

two boys kissing

Two Boys Kissing by David Levithan

Released August 27, 2013.

Based on true events, this is the story of Henry and Craig, who attempt to set the World Record for kissing the longest.  That means they have to kiss for over 32 hours without a break, no pee breaks, no drink breaks, no sleep and no food.  They start it as a way to support their friend who had been attacked for being gay, but it quickly becomes so much more than that.  It is a kiss felt around the world.  It’s a kiss that speaks to other gay boys, boys who are in their own relationships, those just starting to meet one another, those born into the wrong bodies, those exploring the dark side of the Internet, and others who are just coming out.  The entire book is narrated by the voices of gay men who died in the AIDS epidemic, a generation of gay men who watch the violence, the continued anguish, but also the hope, the progress and the open joy of love.

This book is quite simply a masterpiece.  The pairing of the fresh young love of these gay teens against the wisdom of those who fault earlier battles is brilliant.  It places the entire book into a context that could otherwise be lost.  It is through those many narrators that the truth is laid bare in luminous poetic sentences like “He has no idea how beautiful he is as he walks up that path and rings that doorbell.  He has no idea how beautiful the ordinary becomes once it disappears.”  I highlighted so many sentences like that, bursts of beautiful insight scattered across the sky of the book.  Levithan is at his best here.

Levithan’s pairing of the modern with the perspective of those dead also makes sure that the book has a certain focus on death and dying.  He plays with both, contrasting it with the beauty of the every day, the wonder of perfect moments that are perfect only because they are momentary.  The book reads as one of those crystalline moments caught and tangible.  Levithan also offers gay characters who are in complicated relationships, adding to the depth of the narrative even further.  None of these teens are stereotypes, they are all deeply human, wonderfully so.

Beautifully written with strong characters and a brilliant concept, this book is breathtaking, just like a great kiss should be.  Appropriate for ages 14-17.

Reviewed from e-galley courtesy of Knopf Books for Young Readers and Edelweiss.

Review: Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock by Matthew Quick

| Tasha

forgive me leonard peacock

Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock by Matthew Quick

No one remembers Leonard’s 18th birthday, not even his mother who is busy with her new French boyfriend in New York City.  Leonard has big birthday plans.  He has presents for four of his closest friends.  He also has a present for his ex best friend, a bullet.  Specifically, a bullet right in his face.  Then Leonard will finish his birthday night by killing himself too.  First though, Leonard has to hand out his presents.  There is one for Walt, his next-door neighbor with whom Walt watches Bogart movies.  One for Lauren, the Christian homeschooler who tried to convert Leonard but only got him to lust after her more.  One for Baback, the gifted violinist whose practice sessions Leonard finds solace in.  And finally, one for Herr Silverman, the only teacher Leonard finds inspiring at all.  The story takes place all in one day filled with tension, hope and honesty.

Quick has created such a great character in Leonard.  Leonard is often arrogant, violently depressed, isolated, completely lonely, and yet infinitely human as well.  While he looks down on his classmates and most of his teachers, as his motivation is slowly revealed to the reader, it all makes sense.  Leonard is a puzzle that the reader gets to solve, and yet he remains complicated still. 

A book like this can be so dark there is not even a glimmer of light, but Quick shines light throughout if you are watching for it.  By the end of the book, you know that Leonard can be alright, if he just allows himself to believe it.  Quick has also written a great character who is a testimony to the role of teachers in teens’ lives.  Herr Silverman puts his own career in jeopardy to help Leonard, making him a hero in every sense of the word.  He is selfless and courageous, and it is clear from the first time he enters the book that he will either save Leonard or Leonard is beyond saving entirely. 

Harrowing, frightening and astonishingly hopeful, this book is a strong and passionate look at a boy willing to destroy everything, especially himself.  Appropriate for ages 14-17.

Reviewed from ARC received from Little, Brown.

Review: If You Could Be Mine by Sara Farizan

| Tasha

Farizan_IfYouCouldBeMine_REV.indd

If You Could Be Mine by Sara Farizan

This debut novel from an Iranian-American author takes a look at what it is like to be a teen lesbian in Iran.  Sahar loves her friend Nasrin intensely.  They have been friends since childhood and Sahar has loved her since she was six.  They steal kisses when their parents are not around and long to be able to plan their lives together.  But in a country where women can be arrested and beaten for showing their elbows in public, their love is not allowed.  When Nasrin is betrothed to a young doctor, Sahar desperately looks for a solution that would allow them to be together.   She discovers that in Iran, you can have a sex change if you declare yourself to be transgendered and be considered fully the opposite sex.  So Sahar sets out to do just that, become a man so that she can marry Nasrin.  As Sahar’s plan develops, she has to make some serious choices, ones that will affect her for the rest of her life.

Farizan’s writing is clear and beautiful.  She adroitly shows the society of Iran, its treatment of women, the fear of the police, and the danger that the characters are living with.  The portrayal of their love is tender and exploratory, as it begins to crumble, one can see Sahar’s love for Nasrin remain even when their closeness begins to evaporate under the stress of the upcoming wedding and Sahar’s desperation to find a solution.

Throughout the book, there is a sense of longing, of yearning for freedom, for love, for one another.  It is a book filled with choices where nothing is right due to the society around them.  Yet through it all, Sahar shines.  She is a wonderful character who is strong, smart and unstoppable. 

This book depicts in life in Iran but also offers a diverse look at GLBTQ issues in the Middle East.  With a piercingly strong heroine, it is a powerful pick for public library collections.  Appropriate for ages 13-17.

Reviewed from ARC received from Algonquin Young Readers.

Review: The Lord of Opium by Nancy Farmer

| Tasha

lord of opium

The Lord of Opium by Nancy Farmer

Released September 3, 2013.

This is the sequel to the award-winning The House of the Scorpion, which came out in 2004.  Matt, clone of the dead drug lord El Patron, is now master of the Land of Opium, his own country.  All of the problems he saw as he grew up in Opium are still there.  The eejits, people who have been made into zombies by having computer chips placed in their brains, are still required for Opium to thrive.  Making opium and selling it is still the way that everything is funded.  And everyone expects Matt to step quickly into the same brutal ways as El Patron used.  Matt desperately wants to fix everything wrong with Opium, but he comes up against many obstacles.  Matt must quickly learn who to trust in the web of lies that El Patron created. 

I was thrilled to see a new book in this series, but concerned that I would have to re-read the first one because it has been nine years.  Somehow Farmer manages to place you right back into the world without rehashing the first book.  I found myself immediately recalling the first book, probably because of the strength of Farmer’s stories and world building.  It all came rushing back with no problems.  Now that is amazing writing!

Matt is such a complex character, just as he was in the first book.  He is both indebted to Opium and yet despises it.  He loves the land and the place itself but hates the reason it exists too.  He resents the money and wealth that surrounds him yet finds himself unable to not use it.  Matt is trapped in the most complicated of moral and ethical dilemmas and there is no clear way forward at any time.  The result is a novel that is riveting thanks to those deep questions.

The setting of lush Opium is written with care and detail.  Farmer lingers over descriptions of Opium as the last green place on earth and the fact that it is probably the only salvation for the rest of the world.  Her pacing is also nicely handled.  She slows it at times to allow relationships to build but the action keeps the pace fast and the book flies past.

A worthy successor to a great first novel, this book does not suffer from any sophomore slump.  Welcome back to the world of Opium!  Appropriate for ages 14-18.

Reviewed from digital galley received from Edelweiss and Atheneum Books for Young Readers.

Review: Love in the Time of Global Warming by Francesca Lia Block

| Tasha

love in the time of global warming

Love in the Time of Global Warming by Francesca Lia Block

Released August 27, 2013.

Seventeen-year-old Pen has survived the earthquake and tsunami wave in her native Los Angeles, but all of her family and friends have disappeared.  For weeks, Pen stays in her destroyed home, living off of the canned goods that her paranoid father kept in the basement.  But when the group of men come, she flees, aided by one of them and given a van, food, water, a map, and the promise of her family being alive.  Leaving her home, Pen finds only desolation and monsters.  There are giants on the loose, stomping around and leaving piles of gleaming clean human bones behind.  When Pen meets her first giant, she blinds his last good eye and flees.  She lands in a house where everyone is high on lotus juice and meets Hex who encourages her to dally there with him.  But Pen is on a quest to find her family, hoping that they are alive in Las Vegas.  Hex joins her and soon others aid her in her journey that is filled with love, butterflies, and danger.

A retelling of Homer’s Odyssey, Pen is a modern Odysseus on her own journey home.  Block’s writing is amazing.  There are passages that are piercingly true like her description of a mall: “The mall, with its greasy smells and labyrinth of silver escalators leading nowhere, always made me hungry and tired like I needed something I could never have.”  Her phrases sing and move, illuminating the truth beyond our surface world.  Block writes of crushes and lust and love in a way that speaks to what happens in the heart and under the skin, a blistering wonder.

Pen is a curious heroine.  She is a reluctant hero, at first unable to leave her home, then blinding the giant in defense.  The book is about her transformation from normal teen girl to rocking hero willing to put it all on the line for those she loves.  She grows in confidence and skill in natural way.  But much of this book is wonderfully unnatural.  The ties to The Odyssey make for a book that is monstrous as well as beautiful.  It is a tale that is unable to be categorized thanks to its genre-bending mix of dystopian fantasy, myths, and modern reality.

Block has created another amazing read in this book.  Her fans will rejoice at a new book from her, but this is also one that will create new fans.  Appropriate for ages 14-17.

Reviewed from ARC received from Henry Holt and Company at ALA.

Review: 45 Pounds (More or Less) by K. A. Barson

| Tasha

45 pounds

45 Pounds (More or Less) by K. A. Barson

When Ann’s parents divorced and then her parents remarried and started new families, Ann turned to food to soothe herself.  Now she is 16 years old and wears a size 17.  Her mother on the other hand is a perfect size 6.  When they shop together, it is torture for Ann.  Her mother tries to motivate her, but picking out a tiny bikini as motivation is not the right way!  Then Ann is asked to be a maid of honor in her aunt’s wedding and she decides to lose 45 pounds by the wedding in 10 weeks.  Ann starts out by ordering a kit from an infomercial and eating according their diet.  To do that, she has to get a job to pay for the food.  Her summer suddenly becomes about a lot more than watching TV and eating.  Now she is attending dance lessons for the wedding, gets invited to the party of the year, and has a boy flirting with her!  It’s a summer of change, and it’s not all about losing weight.

Thank goodness for the lightness of this title.  This subject can be heavy handed at times, but not here.  Happily, the book deals with weighty topics (pun intended) but manages to remain positive and not didactic at all.  Instead it is a voyage of self-discovery for Ann and the reader.  One notes quickly that she catches the attention of the cute boy before losing lots of weight.  The book does address fad diets and infomercials as well as the way that parental pressure can backfire. 

Yet the book is not all about weight loss.  It also explores divorce and its impact on children, the way siblings can drift away, the loss of friendships, and the way that all of that impacts self esteem.  It is this depth that makes the book so rich.  One understands Ann’s pain and why she was eating to cover it all up.  Beautifully, readers are also shown that thin people may not be quite as comfortable or healthy as they may seem either.

A great pick for teen readers, this book is about being comfortable at any size.  Appropriate for ages 13-16.

Reviewed from copy received from Viking.