Teen

Review: Pregnant Pause by Han Nolan

| Tasha

pregnant pause

Pregnant Pause by Han Nolan

Released September 19, 2011.

Eleanor has always made the worst decisions but this one may top them all.  She’s now pregnant and married to her boyfriend.  Oh, and stuck in a cabin, at a weight-loss camp, with her in-laws who definitely don’t approve of her.  Her parents have left her to return to Kenya and their missionary work with AIDS infants.  Everyone wants Eleanor’s baby.  Her older sister who has been struggling with infertility wants the baby.  Her in-laws who lost a child in infancy want it too.  But Eleanor and her husband are the only ones who can decide what they are going to do.  As Eleanor works at the camp with the children, she learns that she has a real skill with kids.  And of course, she does it in her own way.  Now she just has to figure how to handle her marriage, pregnancy, and a baby.

Nolan’s writing is exquisite.  She has created a protagonist in Eleanor who is definitely a hero, but also challenges the reader with her anger, her biting wit, and her choices.  Eleanor reads as a real person, with self-doubts and real emotions that originate naturally from the story line.  Nolan writes with a confidence and skill here, showing that there is life beyond pregnancy but it is filled with difficult choices and unexpected events.

A strong and riveting look at teen pregnancy, this book reaches far beyond a single issue and straight to the heart of a compelling character.  Appropriate for ages 14-17.

Reviewed from ARC received from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Children’s Book Group.

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Review: Page by Paige by Laura Lee Gulledge

| Tasha

page by paige

Page by Paige by Laura Lee Gulledge

Paige has just moved with her family to New York City.  She is having trouble relating to her mother and had to leave her best friend behind.  Now she has to find people in the big city who can understand her.  But before she can do that, she has to start to understand herself.  Is she the quiet girl or can she become an extroverted artist?  As Paige struggles to find herself and to find her voice as an artist, readers are treated to an extraordinary look at the process of art combined with the process of finding friends and love.

Gulledge has created a graphic novel where the visuals are powerful and speak volumes.  She turns the comic format into one that is strongly artistic and very visual.  Here we see the emotions of Paige brought to visual life from her self-doubts to her most self-aware.  Paige is a character that readers with artistic interests will relate to easily.  Her yearning to create combined with her doubts and worries make for a book with plenty to inspire other young artists to take the risk of creation.

Get this in the hands of tween and teen artists and step back.  A truly inspiring read.  Appropriate for ages 12-15.

Reviewed from library copy.

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Check out the trailer that gives a sense of the great art:

Review: Blood Wounds by Susan Beth Pfeffer

| Tasha

blood wounds

Released September 12, 2011.

Blood Wounds by Susan Beth Pfeffer

Willa’s life may not be perfect, she lives in a blended family with sisters who get their expensive hobbies and trips paid for by their mother, while Willa doesn’t get those opportunities.  Their family is happy though.  Of course, there’s a reason that Willa feels the need to cut, so maybe things aren’t as good as they seem.  Then one day, with a series of murders in a faraway state, Willa’s life is thrown into crisis.  Her biological father is on the run after killing his wife and children, and he’s probably headed to get Willa next.  As the crisis throws their life into turmoil, Willa discovers more about her family than she’d ever known, including secrets that answer a lot of the questions she’s never dared to ask.

Pfeffer has created a book that starts with a thrilling premise but that turns out to be less of a thriller and more of a psychological look at a teen girl who has to deal with the aftermath of her father’s madness.  Willa is a very intriguing and complex heroine.  She struggles to be the perfect daughter, never revealing what she really thinks to her family.  On the inside though she is filled with doubts, with unvoiced thoughts, and with resentment.  With her father’s murders her life begins to reflect more of her inner world, becoming just as confused and tumultuous. 

The writing here is very well crafted.  With so many themes: blended families, cutting, murder and forgiveness, it could have become muddled.  Instead the themes support one another, creating a tapestry of interwoven ideas that strengthen one another. 

Readers will pick the book up for the thrilling premise and then be riveted as they discover a much more complicated read than they were expecting.  Appropriate for ages 13-15.

Reviewed from ARC received from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

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Review: Island’s End by Padma Venkatraman

| Tasha

islands end

Island’s End by Padma Venkatraman

A remote island in the Bay of Bengal is the setting for this novel by the author of Climbing the Stairs.  Uido is a teen who can communicate with spirits.  Just before strangers arrive at their island, Uido dreams of it.  The tribe has conflicted feelings about the strangers, some are drawn to the technology of their fast boats and matches, while others see the end of their ways if the new ways are adopted.  During this confusing time, Uido studies to become her tribe’s spiritual leader.  There is danger in the studies, from braving the dangers of the island to finding her spirit animal.  But nothing is as dangerous yet beguiling as the strangers and their new ways, as Uido is soon to find out. 

Venkatraman creates a vivid world here surrounded by water and coral reefs.  It is a world where everything is different.  The island itself is a character in the book as seasons turn, Uido journeys across the island, and finally in the climactic ending scenes.  The island is beautiful, wild, untamed and irresistible.

Uido is a heroine who faces many self-doubts, but rises to the challenges she is faced with.  She has a spirit herself that is true and strong.  She struggles with a friend who doesn’t understand her, a brother who is jealous, and the loneliness of being away from her family.  Plus the allure of the modern world.  Yet in Uido, readers will also see a young woman who is tied to the traditional ways in a strong and compelling way.

Beautifully written, this book is a journey into an unknown, primitive world where readers will discover a radiance and wonder.  Appropriate for ages 13-15.

Reviewed from ARC received from Penguin Young Readers Group.

Book Review: The Babysitter Murders by Janet Ruth Young

| Tasha

babysitter murders

The Babysitter Murders by Janet Ruth Young

Dani seems to have a normal life on the outside, but she starts to have violent and invasive thoughts that she can’t control.  She has visions of doing inappropriate things or saying rude things about people she loves.  When she starts to think about murdering the little boy, Alex, she babysits for, she knows she has a problem.  When the thoughts start, she hides the large sharp knives in the garage and keeps checking on Alex to make sure she hasn’t hurt him.  Though she tries to tell her mother and her best friend, they don’t understand what she is trying to express.  Finally, in desperation, she decides to stop babysitting altogether, but while doing so admits to Alex’s mother what she has been thinking.  Soon the Dani is at the center of a media frenzy about a killer babysitter and is the target of an extremist group.  Everyone wants justice, but what is justice for something that never happened except in her mind?

This book builds slowly allowing readers time to understand Dani’s situation and relationships.  The book really picks up in the middle and ending, with even the length of the chapters shortening.  It reads at a very fast pace towards the end, making for a satisfying and riveting read. 

Dani is a very successful character.  A girl who is so sweet and kind, so afraid of disappointing others.  She is also an athlete, a musician, and on the way to having a boyfriend.  It is this normalcy that makes her mental illness work so well in the book.  This is not a girl who is a loner, but one with a healthy family life and social life.  Young has excelled at creating a girl who is normal but abnormal at the same time.

Young also works to emphasize the point that mental illness is not accepted by our society, though it should be.  The book is also about the speed of media frenzy, the overreaction of a community, and the targeting of a teen who has done nothing wrong.   It is about the fear of mental illness and the media’s disdain for it and yet their thirst for a big juicy story.

An outstanding look at mental illness in a teen, this book asks big questions many of which remain only to be answered by the reader.  Appropriate for ages 14-16.

Reviewed from copy received from Atheneum Books for Young Readers.

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Book Review: A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness

| Tasha

monster calls

A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness, from an original idea by Siobhan Dowd, illustrated by Jim Kay

Released September 27, 2011.

Conor awoke at 12:07, just after midnight, from his nightmare, the one he had been having for years.  Then he realized that something was calling his name.  It was a monster, but not the monster from his dreams.  It was another monster, a monster who came walking to tell him three stories and then Conor had to tell him the fourth and final story.  And it had to be the truth.  Conor had not told anyone the truth for some time, not since his mother had first gotten sick.  Now she was worse again.  So Conor turned to the monster in the hopes that he could save her, that that was what had brought the monster walking.

Ness has created a powerful book from the final idea that Siobhan Dowd left before she died.  It is gut wrenching on so many levels.  You have a monster who is breathtakingly real, a boy who is disappearing into his mother’s illness, and a story of cancer and all of the feelings and emotions it creates and doesn’t allow to be expressed.  This is a book about the time before the loss, the anguish of the waiting, the hollowness not only inside the surviving family but around them as well, and the anger that is a part of grief too. 

Ness does not duck away from anything difficult here, rather he explores it in ways I haven’t seen before.  He takes the darkness and makes it real, makes it honest, creates truth from it and lays it all bare.  It is a book that is difficult to read but too compelling to put down.

Kay’s art runs throughout the book, framing the text.  It helps create a mood for the entire work, one of darkness and lightness too.   He plays with such darkness in his art here that it is sometimes a matter of black and blacker.  The art, done just in black and white, speaks to the power of the monster, the blaze of life, and the fragility of it as well.

I simply can’t say enough good things about this book.  It is a stunning work that truly does tribute to Siobhan Dowd’s idea.  Appropriate for ages 12-14.

Reviewed from ARC received from Candlewick Press.

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Book Review: Dead End in Norvelt by Jack Gantos

| Tasha

dead end in norvelt

Dead End in Norvelt by Jack Gantos

Released on September 13, 2011.

Gantos’ latest may just be one of his best, and with his successes before now, that is certainly saying something.  The book is an intriguing mix of memoir and fiction that has a protagonist named “Jack Gantos.”  Jack is a boy who loves history, war movies, and playing with his father’s war trophies, including a Japanese rifle.  When Jack takes a pretend shot at the outdoor movie theater screen from a long way away, the rifle actually goes off.  Jack gets caught in his parent’s feud over the use of a field, and ends up grounded for the summer.  The only way he gets to leave is to help a neighbor write the local obituaries.  Over the summer, he begins to help with more, including driving her on her other job of medical examiner.  When the original residents of their town start to die off, the question becomes if it’s murder or just old age.   One thing is for sure, you have to pay attention to history to figure it all out.

The writing in this book is clever and witty.  One never quite knows what is going to happen next, what new character will enter the story, or where it will go.  It’s a rollercoaster of a book, but one that is strong and steady as well.  Readers are in wild but good hands here.

Gantos has populated his story with all sorts of characters.  Jack is a boy whose nose gushes blood whenever he is scared, shocked, surprised, or emotional.  It becomes a barometer in the story of his emotions, and is just the first oddity of the book.  The neighbor lady who writes the obituaries is a character who is feisty, elderly, smart and sassy.  She is an unusual character for a tween/teen novel and one that enlivens the entire book.  Then there seem to be endless others that could be listed.  There is the police officer who rides a tricycle, the dead Hell’s Angels member who danced into town and could be carrying a plague, and Jack’s feuding parents too.

Norvelt is a great setting for a book.  It was a town created by Eleanor Roosevelt to give poor people a good start.  The economy was based on bartering, but that has fallen apart during these later years.  Now the homes are starting to empty, no new people want to move to town, and some homes are being sold and hauled away.  It is a town in disrepair that is not aging well.  Rather like the townsfolk themselves. 

A great read, this book has murder, some mayhem, and plenty of blood (though it comes out of Jack’s nose).   Get this into the hands of tweens and teens who enjoy humor and a bit of mystery.  Appropriate for ages 12-15.

Reviewed from ARC received from Farrar Straus Giroux.

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Book Review: All My Friends Are Dead by Avery Monsen

| Tasha

All_My_Friends_Are_Dead

All My Friends Are Dead by Avery Monsen and Jory John

What looks like a small, chunky picture book is actually not a book for children at all.  Instead it is a very funny book for teens and adults that is filled with black humor yet an appealing cuteness as well.  From the tree whose friends are all end tables to the yeti whose friends are all hoaxes, turning each page leads to a new surprise. 

Readable in a matter of minutes, this book had both my husband and teen son reading it merrily aloud to me even though I had just read it myself.  Both stopped in the middle of their morning routines and read the book cover to cover, chuckling and laughing out loud. 

Get this in the hands of teens who will recognize the children’s format and also immediately get that this is a book that is not for the little ones.  It is a book that will have you laughing at death, much to your amazement and glee.

Book Review: Hourglass by Myra McEntire

| Tasha

hourglass

Hourglass by Myra McEntire

Emerson wants to be cured more than anything!  That way she can stop seeing the ghosts around her and start being normal.  The visions have plagued her since before her parents’ death but now they seem to be getting larger and one, who calls himself Jack, even talks directly to her.  So when her brother hires another consultant to try to cure her, Emerson agrees.  She didn’t expect to find a consultant who is not only completely hot, but who also understands her situation so completely.  As Emerson finds herself electrically drawn to the dark, mysterious Michael, she also wonders about the mysterious Hourglass organization he works for.  This mysterious, romantic and paranormal read mixes science fiction and fantasy into our modern world.

The cover on this book captured me immediately.  Happily, the gorgeous cover and its unusual feel work very well for the book.  The book has the same sort of modern but off-kilter beauty about it.  Though this is McIntire’s debut novel, it never feels that way.  She has created a book that has a maturity about it, especially in its world building and its characters.

Emerson is a very strong protagonist who is petite, powerful and gifted.  Her sarcasm elevates the book with its humor, keeping it modern and fresh.   Emerson is flawed too, very aware of her own fragility after her parents’ death, and never willing to share more than she has to with people.  Readers will relate to her effortlessly.

The world McEntire has created is our own but features people with unusual gifts.  While some of the gifts are only hinted at, others come only to full fruition when shared with others.  It creates a world of power but only when people work together.  In this way, it pushes Emerson personally to see if she will be willing to be that open.  The tension this creates is inherent to the success of the novel.

In a market filled with paranormal novels, this is one that you should definitely find time for.  It’s a gripping, mysterious read filled with plenty of romance.  Appropriate for ages 14-17.

Reviewed from copy received from Egmont.

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