Dry

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dryby Neal Shusterman and Jarrod Shusterman
First sentence: ”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Review copy provided by the publisher.
Content: There are many intense situations, some reference to drinking and drug use (by adults, mostly), and violence. It’s in the YA section (grades 6-8) of the bookstore.

I will say this up front: this novel is TERRIFYING. The father-son team takes the plausible — what would happen if there was a severe drought in Southern California and then access to the Colorado River was entirely cut off — and turns it into a gripping, thriller-like survival ride, to answer the question: What would you do for access to water?

The story alternates viewpoints between Alyssa, who with her brother Garret, have to figure out what to do when their parents go missing; their neighbor Kelton, a son of a survivalist who has prepared for Times Like These. When things go from bad to worse — let’s just say their other neighbors aren’t forgiving of the fact that Kelton’s family has prepared — they go on the run, nominally to find a place to ride out the “crisis” and pick up two other kids — Henry and Jacqui — on the way. Interspersed are “snapshots” of how the wider community is reacting and gives the reader a bigger picture of how this is affecting the community as a whole.

Shusterman is an incredible storyteller, and he knows how to keep a plot going from page to page. There are funny bits and touching bits and terrifying bits (lots of those actually), and it all felt incredibly realistic. I could see this playing out — especially with the way society is in denial about climate change — pretty much exactly like this. I’ve heard it said that science fiction isn’t about predicting the future, but rather about what it’s happening in the present. If that’s true, then this should be a wake up call to take better care of the planet. Otherwise, this “prediction” might just become reality.

Summer of Salt

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summerofsaltby Katrina Leno
First sentence: “On the island of By-the-Sea you could always smell two things: salt and magic.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Content: Lots and lots and lots of swearing, including f-bombs (which seemed really out of place to me; I don’t know why) and some teenage drinking. It’s in the Teen section (grades 9+) of the bookstore.

Georgianna and Mary are twins that have grown up on the island By-the-Sea, daughters of the Fernweh line of women who have, well, magic. It usually manifests at birth, but sometimes takes longer. One of their great-grandmothers, Annabella, has turned into a bird, and comes back every summer to nest and attempt to hatch babies. Except this year.

This is the year that Georgianna and Mary turn 18, the summer before they are destined to leave the island. And everything seems to be going wrong. It won’t stop raining. Mary’s acting strange. And Annabella hasn’t shown up. And Georgianna’s magic won’t manifest itself.

This was an odd book — more magical realism than anything else — but I found myself enjoying it. I loved the matriarchal family, I loved the little island and it’s support of the weirdness that is the Fernweh women. I loved the magic, and now ordinary it was. And I just enjoyed the way Leno told the story.

It was all very charming.

The Traitor’s Game

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traitorsgameby Jennifer Nielsen
First sentence: “The truth of where I’d been for the past three years wasn’t what anyone believed.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Review copy provided by the publisher.
Content: There are some intense situations and violence. It’s in the young adult (grades 6-8) of the bookstore.

Kestra Dallisor is the daughter of the second most powerful person in the land. Which makes her highly valuable. She survived a kidnapping attempt three years ago, and has been in exile ever since. Now, as she is summoned back to Antora by her father, she is faced, yet again, with an impossible situation: she’s been kidnapped by rebels, her beloved guard held hostage, and they’ve laid before her an impossible challenge: recover the Olden Blade, the only thing that can kill the immortal dictator of Antora. And do it in three days.

She complies, of course, but not willingly. And the things she discovers as she searches for the Blade are going to turn her world upside down.

I thought this one was a lot of fun! I enjoyed Kestra’s determination and stubbornness and her desire to receive affection from her father. She’s smart and capable and it was quite delightful reading her banter with the other characters (no one was safe from her sarcasm). And there were a couple of twists in there that caught me off guard (happily so) and led the story in interesting directions. It’s the first in a series, so while it has a conclusion, it leaves it open for the story to take off in intriguing directions.

Highly recommended.

Monthly Round-up: October 2018

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Happy Halloween! Tonight will find me at home, deep in a Cybils book (hopefully) while answering the door (probably not; we don’t get many trick-or-treaters) and most likely setting a pumpkin on fire (don’t ask). It’s What One Does when there are only teenagers in the house.

I read a TON of really great books this month, but the one that’s stuck with me was this one:

heykiddo

Hey Kiddo

As for the rest:

Middle Grade:

Louisiana’s Way Home
Sweep

Young Adult:

Marcus Vega Doesn’t Speak Spanish
West
Allegedly
Give Me Some Truth (audio)
The Dark Descent of Elizabeth Frankenstein
Dear Martin

Graphic Novels:

Sanity & Tallulah
Amulet: Supernova

Adult Fiction:

 

The Collector’s Apprentice
Vampires in the Temple

What was your favorite this month?

Dear Martin

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dearmartin.jpgby Nic Stone
First sentence: “From where he’s standing across the street, Justyce can see her: Melo Taylor, ex-girlfriend, slumped over beside her Benz on the damp concrete of the FarmFresh parking lot.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Content: There is some teenage drinking, talk of sex, swearing, and violence. It’s in the Teen section (grades 9+) of the bookstore.

Justytce is a scholarship student at one of the most prestigious prep schools in Atlanta. He’s smart, he’s observant, he definitely deserves to be there.

Except. He’s one of only three black students in the school. And when he was arrested for trying to help his drunk ex-girlfriend (so she wouldn’t drive drunk!) right before his senior year, he starts to notice things he’s let slide before. Like how his best friend’s (who’s also black) friends are, well, racist. Like how cops seem to get a pass when dealing with black people (especially men). And he tries, through writing letters to Martin Luther King, Jr, to understand they way black people are treated, and tries to understand how to do the, well, “right” thing.

It’s not easy. Justyce says at one point in the book that it’s tough being in his position: he’s got white people at his school questioning whether he deserves to be there (or to get into Yale) and then black people in his mother’s neighborhood trying to pull him back and making fun of him and his aspirations. It’s unfair, to say the least.

And then, in one fateful afternoon, his whole life changes: his best friend is shot and killed in a traffic altercation with an off-duty cop. And Justyce — who was also in the car – – is caught in the cross hairs, and blamed for everything.

It’s a short novel — just over 200 pages — but it packs a punch. The takeaway? White people are awful. We have to work really hard at not being awful, because we take so much for granted. It was definitely eye-opening.

Pair it with The Hate U Give and Ghost Boys, and if you’re white, remind yourself of the privilege you have every day of your life.

The Dark Descent of Elizabeth Frankenstein

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darkdescentby Kiersten White
First sentence: “Lightning clawed across the sky, tracing veins through teh louds and marking the pulse of the universe itself.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Review copy provided by the publisher.
Content: There is some talk of violent acts, and one swear word. It’s in the YA section (grades 6-8) of the bookstore.

This book is being billed as a retelling of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, but I think it’s more a prequel: the story is of Elizabeth, who becomes a childhood companion of Victor Frankenstein, ostensibly to keep him company, but really to keep his anger and unusual tendencies in check. She is endebted to the Frankestein family for taking her in when she was a small child and basically raising her. And now that they are grown, she feels like Victor is all she has. If she doesn’t keep him in line, she will lose her whole life. So, when he disappears after going away to school, Elizabeth goes after him. And what she discovers is, well, the subject of the classic book.

What this really was (or at least the way I read it) about was the portrait of an abusive man and a woman’s response to it. Victor, if you’ve read the original, is not a nice person. And the way White wrote him, he was never a nice person. And Elizabeth was gaslighted from a very young age. Victor was her world, and the way White portrayed it, that was never a good thing. Or, maybe that’s just the way I read it. Either way, I was angry and disturbed and more angry. It was an interesting book, though: Elizabeth had a phenomenal growth arc, and there were some characters along the way who helped her realize just what an awful situation she was in.

In the end, though, I couldn’t get past the abusive relationship at the heart of it, and the book just made me angry. Maybe that’s a good thing?

Sweep

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sweepby Jonathan Auxier
First sentence: “There were all sorts of wonderful things a person might see very early in the morning.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Content: There are some scary moments, and some talk of death. Plus the prose just feels “older”. It’s in the middle grade (grades 3-5) section of the bookstore, but it could easily go older as well.

Nan Sparrow has been a chimney sweep her whole life. She started out with a man she called Sweep, until one day he just didn’t come back, and so she took up with her current master, Crudd. He, if you can’t tell from his name, isn’t terribly nice.

Then one day, the worst thing that can happen to a sweep happens to Nan: she gets stuck. They try to get her out, but nothing works, and so they try the Final Option: burning her out. She blacks out, and when she wakes up… she’s rescued. And there’s a creature there. She ends up calling him Charlie — he was made from a small piece of char that the Sweep left her — and it turns out he’s a golem.

It has a tough beginning, but after Charlie comes into the story, it settles down into small adventures: Nan tries to keep from getting caught — she is supposed to be dead, after all — and tires to find out more about Charlie and his purpose as Charlie himself learns more about the world. It’s very atmospheric (in all the best ways), as Nan and Charlie end up relying on each other. There is a couple of small sub-plots, dealing with the horrid conditions of chimney sweeps in Victorian England (and they are horrid) and with Crudd’s vengeance for Nan “escaping” her indenture. But, mostly it’s a charming little tale of Nan and Charlie and their friendship.

Auxier, when he was here for school visits, said that he considers himself more of a storyteller than a writer, and that shows: although his writing is elegant, it’s the storytelling that comes through. He knows how to tell a story to keep a reader reading, and to make the characters come to life. It’s a strange, sweet story and I adored every moment of this one (even the ending, which made me cry).

IMG_9782[1].JPG

Amulet: Supernova

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supernovaby Kazu Kibuishi
First sentence: “Mind if I join you, Traveler?”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Others in the series: The Stonekeeper, The Stonekeeper’s Curse, The Cloud Searchers, The Last Council, Prince of the Elves, Escape from Lucien, Firelight

First: I would highly suggest you read (or re-read) the other seven books in the series before tackling this one. It’s been more than two years since the last book came out, and if you’re anything like me, you won’t remember what’s going on. Also: it’s a fantastic experience reading one right after the other, seeing how Kibuishi has fit everything together and foreshadowed events throughout the series.

That said, there really isn’t much to say.  The resistance is fighting an Incredible Battle Against Impossible Odds. Emily is fighting for control with the Voice of the Amulet. Everything seems dire. And, no, it doesn’t quite end here. There’s one more (it does say “to be concluded in book nine” at the end). But, Kibuishi’s art is still amazing, and the story telling still spot-on. And the characters still worth adventuring with.

I will be incredibly sad to see this come to an end after so many years, but I’m sure it will be completely worth it.

Audio book: Give Me Some Truth

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by Eric Gansworth
Read by the author and Brittany LeBorgne
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Or listen at Libro.fm
Content:  There is a lot of swearing, including some f-bombs, a very very awkward almost sex scene, plus some underage drinking. It’s in the Teen section (grades 9+) of the bookstore. 

Set in 1980, this follows two members of the Tuscarora Nation in Northern New York: Carson, whose sole goal is to win the Battle of the Bands and a trip to New York City, and Maggi, whose family has just moved back to the reservation and is trying to figure out where she fits in. There are other things going on: there’s a diner off the reservation called Custer’s Last Stand that is (literally) The Worst, and Carson (and his brother) are mixed up in it. There’s an incident with making turkey in home ec class. There’s Maggi’s (and Carson’s friend Lewis’s) job at the garage. There’s selling traditional beadwork outside of Niagra Falls set against Maggi’s desire to be an artist, rather than just a traditional beadworker.  

Two things: 1) white people are HORRIBLE. And 2) I almost gave this up because of the pedophile. Maggi’s involved with a 31-year-old white guy (she’s 15!) and he was giving her presents and telling her he loved her, and pressuring her to have sex with him, and yet wanted to keep her secret from everyone (“if we don’t tell, it’s not illegal”). I was (literally) screaming at the car radio because of this. But, after talking to A and C about it, I came to realize that the pedophile was part of the larger theme which was my first point. White people (even though this was set in 1980, I’m not sure much has changed) are. the. worst. 

In the end, this was a really good exploration of the way native peoples are treated, and what life on the reservation was like. And, while I thought that Brittany was a much better reader than Eric, I still enjoyed listening to the book. Oh. And finish it. It all does come out right in the end. 

The Collector’s Apprentice

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by B. A. Shapiro
First sentence: “This isn’t how it was supposed to be, Edwin.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Review copy provided by the publisher.
Content: There are a couple of f-bombs, and a couple of tasteful sex scenes. It’s in the fiction section of the bookstore.

It’s 1922 and Pauliene Mertens is in Paris, abandoned by her ex-fiance (he took the money and ran, ruining her family’s fortune and name) and disowned by her family. So she changes her name to Vivienne Gregsby and reinvents herself, as a secretary to an American, Edwin Bradley, who is in Paris looking to collect art and start a museum. Knowledgeable about Impressionism and post-Impressionism, Bradley soon discovers that Vivienne is indispensable, and brings her to America to help him set up his (private) museum. From there, it’s a lot of drawing-room drama: alleged and actual affairs, money issues, ex-fiance popping up with another scheme, Matisse and Gertrude Stein, and the whole undercurrent of whether or not anyone will figure out who Vivienne really is.

It’s a little bit of a mystery — who killed Edwin? It’s a little bit 1920s art history. It’s a little bit romance (Vivienne takes up with Matisse, not to mention her relationship with George that starts the whole book off). It’s a little bit of a lot of things, which maybe is what kept me from loving it. I enjoyed the art history part the best; the way Shapiro writes Matisse is fabulous; he (and Gertrude Stein) was my favorite character. Vivienne was kind of a bland character to spend most of the book with, and it made the ending kind of surprising. (In fact, the only thing I wanted out of the book was George to get his comeuppance. Seriously.)

It’s (really) loosely based on history, and I found myself wondering what was true (answer: not much, really) and what wasn’t. And while I enjoyed it well enough, it wasn’t my favorite novel this year by a long shot.