tiny pink books

Deadline by Chris Crutcher
Greenwillow Books, 2007

What if you found out you only had a year to live?  In Deadline, 18-year-old Ben Wolf discovers, at the start of his senior year, that he has a terminal disease that will likely kill him within a year.  Forgoing treatment with iffy promises, Wolf instead chooses not to tell his friends and family and decides to live a lifetime in his last year, challenging himself in sports, relationships and school.  Dying becomes more complicated, however, as Wolf’s relationships shift and change, making him engage with the world around him like he never has before.

What I liked about Deadline was that it was a fairly smart book that really captured a complex dilemma.  The concept of life and its meaning run very central to the plot and, written in a very honest, down to earth teenage boy perspective.  To top things off, Deadline has some of the best sports scenes that I’ve read in a long time.  Some of the football games were absolutely riveting…and that’s coming from someone who has never actually watched a full football game!

I listened to the audiobook version of Deadline, but I’d recommend the paper copy (nothing against the audio, I just think this type of book would have read better internally).

The Dead Tossed Waves by Carrie Ryan
Delacorte Books for Young Readers, 2010

I was very excited about this sequel to last year’s chilling Forest of Hands and Teeth and was even more thrilled to see the audiobook version out so quickly.  Contrary to the buzz surrounding this book, I found it to be a slight disappointment.

Almost nothing like her mother, Mary (the protagonist of Forest of Hands and Teeth), Gabry lives happily within the barriers of her small, seaside town of Vista.  The barriers around Vista keep out the mudo–hordes of undead zombies that have overrun most of the world. Everything about Gabry’s life changes one night when she and her friends sneak over the barrier and are attacked by mudo.  Death, adventure, infection, love triangles and revelations of Gabry’s past follow in this muddled sequel.

I was bothered by the abundance of melodrama in this book.  The romance plot lines, in particular, were overly dramatic and felt forced.  I think the audio format enhanced this…it was almost unbearable at parts!  When there was action was where The Dead Tossed Waves shined.  Although I’d still highly recommend this book to fans of the Forest of Hands and Teeth (as well as other books in the genre), Dead Tossed Waves lacks the mystery, pacing and strong characters of Forest that made it so appealing.

The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls
Scribner, 2005

I Heart This Book!
The Glass Castle, a memoir by Jeanette Walls, is one of the best books I’ve read in years. Telling the story of her childhood, Walls shares her story of growing up with two ultimately loving, but dangerously eccentric parents leading the family down an extremely unconventional path. Walls’s knack for detail and character make the stories and characters so vivid and lifelike that The Glass Castle is impossible to put down. Despite the neglect and suffering that Walls and her siblings are put through, she tells the story without judgment and, ultimately, with a heartbreaking undertone of love

Who Will Like This?
Tear jerking at times, inspiring, hilariously offbeat and absolutely fascinating to read, this is a book that just about anyone will enjoy. Although it isn’t a book specifically published for YA, I’ve found that young adults, especially girls, love this book as much as I do. I know this title has been around for a while, but I just can’t stop recommending it to friends and family.

(I listened to the audio version and recommend it!)

Lockdown:  Escape From Furnace by Alexander Gordon Smith
Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR), 2009

When fourteen-year-old Alex is framed for a murder, he is sent to the Furnace, a new, state of the art prison for juvenile offenders.  The Furnace is a brutal place, built deep in the bowels of the earth, offering tortures far worse than death.  Facing violent gangs, hard labor, mutated evil monsters, and more, Alex must try to do what has never been done before–escape.

A roller coaster from the very beginning, Lockdown is definitely a page turner.  While the writing feels a bit simple and the plot and characters are a little predictable (though it’s easy to identify with them), the book remains fun and exciting from cover to cover.  It’s violent, dark, and brutal, yet never really pushes the gore or language too far for younger readers.  Complete with cliff hanger ending, this is thriller that will leave readers hanging for the next installment.

I’d recommend this book to reluctant readers (boys, mostly!) who want to move onto something a little bit darker than the Alex Rider books.  Although I can see those readers crossing over and enjoying this too, I think readers who enjoyed books like The Compound will be satisfied with Lockdown.  Definitely not for readers seeking melodrama, sophistication or lyrical language though.

The Sweet Far Thing by Libba Bray
Delacorte Books for Young Readers, 2007.

The final book of the Gemma Doyle Trilogy, The Sweet Far Thing delivers a thoughtful and satisfying conclusion.  Nearing the end of their time at the Spence Academy for Young Ladies, Gemma Doyle and her friends, Felicity and Anne, are faced with the harsh realities of their futures.  Meanwhile, the Realms are awash with conflict as Gemma holds all of the magic and must decide how to share it within the tribes there.  In this final book, Gemma’s two roles, as a strong sorceress of the Realms and as a powerless English school girl, collide and reach an exciting conclusion.
I enjoyed this whole series much more than I expected to.  I love that way Bray uses the historical setting to create a unique and feminist theme.  As Gemma and her friends struggle against the corseted boundaries that society holds them in, the only power they seem to have is that of magic.  I could go on, but basically, this trilogy was a very good blend of genres (both historical fiction and fantasy) with really well written characters.  As someone who is not particularly inclined to either genre, I am amazed at how enjoyable I found this series.  Recommended to readers, especially teen girls, who want action, realistic characters, and a bit of magic.  Also, though long, the audio versions of all of the Gemma Doyle books were excellent!

Vegan Virgin Valentine
by Carolyn Mackler

Overachieving high school senior Mara Valentine’s biggest problem seems to be duking out for her school’s valedictorian.  She’s already gotten into Yale and, on paper, she appears to be the perfect teen.  Finicky and uptight, Mara’s regular routine gets completely turned around when her relative, V, comes to live with her.  V is just one year younger than Mara, but V is a free spirit–wild, compulsive, chaotic–just about everything the Mara is not.  While V drives Mara crazy with her mere presence, Mara begins to see the cracks in her perfect life.  Finding that there is more to life than high GPA and SAT scores, Mara begins to explore other sides of herself and finds that her life’s desires go far beyond accelerated university programs.

What I loved about this book where the characters.  This is only the second book by Carolyn Mackler that I’ve read, but her characters are totally believable and nuanced.  Mara could just be a stuck up, overachieving nerd (and, in part she certainly is!), but Mackler creates the right balance to make her questioning of herself and eventual transformation totally believable.  Same with V.  The everyday drama of having these two characters trying to live under one roof is not just entertaining, but readers, whether they are more like V or more like Mara, will relate.  While the conclusion is reached, perhaps with a slightly sugar coated ease, it is certainly believable.

I enjoyed this book and I think that smart teen readers will too.  While it doesn’t have the drama and excitement to grab any reader, I think the realism in the characters and the problems they face will reach readers who want realistic fiction and drama.  I listened to the audiobook, which was well read and not too long!

Tomorrow When the War Began by John Marsden
Pan Macmillian, 1993

Even though it’s been out since 1993, I recently keep hearing about The Tomorrow series, an Australian series of YA books about a group of teenagers surviving an invasion and subsequent war in their small, rural town.  It’s an epic series, consisting of seven books and a whole further spin-off series.  The premise of the first book, Tomorrow, When the War Began, was too good for me to resist–a group of seven friends, led by Ellie Linton, travel to a remote part of the bush for an unsupervised camping trip and return to discover that their country has been invaded.  Their family and friends are all missing and soldiers are patrolling the town, hunting down remaining citizens like themselves.  What follows is a story that’s half survival and half warfare, as the group tries to set up a camp and fight guerrilla attacks against the invading army.

Although I overall liked this book, although I had some reservations.  I just felt like the plot went up and down too much in terms of the action.  Not just warfare action either–any type of plot movement took a good long while to develop.  The first signs of the war took more than fifty pages to appear.  When it finally does get going though, Tomorrow was hard to put down.  The emotional experiences, especially terror, of Ellie and her friends were told in such descriptive detail that it came right of the page and kept me up all night.  Unfortunately, these intense experiences were surrounded by so many long passages full of practical details (descriptions of the camping site, descriptions of the supplies, etc.) that the book really dragged.

Overall, I liked this book.  It was interesting and, at times, absolutely riveting.  I just wish it had been paced more evenly.  I’d still recommend it for readers seeking a well developed series, as it looks like the later books get more and more convoluted and intense.  It’d be hard to hand this to a reluctant reader, but for readers patient enough to get through the slower parts of the book, there is a good premise and some very interesting characters in here.  As for me, I don’t think I’m hooked enough on the series to read on…at least for a long while.

The Vampire Diaries:  The Awakening and The Struggle by L.J. Smith
HarperTeen, 2007 (originally published in 1991)

Originally published in 1991, Book 1, The Awakening, and Book 2, The Struggle, have been released as one, thickish paperback beginners of The Vampire Diaries, which has also been made into a television series to air this fall on the CW.  I don’t have much to say about these books other than this-they certainly contain the elements of melodramatic, sticky teenage love at first sight AND glamorous, sexy vampires that made Twilight so popular, however, they are much more poorly written.  I think these books will made a decent readalike for the younger fans of Twilight, but more sophisticated readers will probably find them as painfully cliché as I did.  Still, younger readers who enjoyed Twilight will probably enjoy these quick and disposable books.  As for me, I actually read these a month ago and promptly forgot everything about them.  I look forward to the TV show though!

Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan
Delacorte Books For Young Readers, 2009

Mary lives in an isolated village surrounded by fences that have been there for as long as anyone can remember.  On the other side of the fences, zombies, “The Unconsecrated,” as they are known in this book, walk freely.  Trapped by the hordes of zombies outside the fence, life in Mary’s village revolves around survival.  People marry, the have children, they maintain the fences, and they kill off anyone who becomes infected with the zombie plague.  The Sisterhood, a secretive sect of nuns, controls most things in the village and tells the people nothing of their history or what lies beyond the forest.  Fueled by stories of the ocean and a world before the Unconsecrated, Mary is determined to find more to the world than what lies within the fences of her small village.

There’s nothing brilliantly original about The Forest of Hands and Teeth.  It is very reminiscent, almost overly so, of the M. Night Shyamalan movie The Village in many ways.  There’s also, of course, the element of the zombies, which, aside from being called “Unconsecrated” behave very much in the way that zombies do in most zombie movies and books.  Additionally, there’s a love story in The Forest of Hands and Teeth that feels forced and a little tired.  Despite these faults, the story is gripping enough to keep a reader up late into the night and has a powerful emotional impact.  The Forest of Hands and Teeth is one of those rare blends of exciting, page turning adventure and quality, heartfelt writing.

Recommended for teens and adults who like their horror mixed with melodrama.  Yes, there are some pretty exciting zombie scenes here, but there are also quite a lot of meandering passages where Mary questions heavy topics such as faith, the world beyond the fence, and love.  Likewise, sensitive readers should beware that there are some intense scenes of gore, violence, and hair raising action.

Story of a Girl by Sara Zarr
2007, Little, Brown Young Readers

When Deanna was 13, her father caught her in the backseat of a car with a 17-year-old Tommy, her brothers best friend.  The story got around her small, suburban town and Deanna was labeled a slut, by both her peers at school and her father.  Two years later, Deanna is 15 and struggling with the inertia of her past.  Her father still won’t even look her in the eye and her reputation hasn’t changed (even if she has).  In this angsty teen novel, Deanna confronts her past (literally–she ends up working at a pizza place with Tommy) and begins to deal with her issues.

Although Story of a Girl presents a realistic character sketch of a troubled 15-year-old girl, I think what Zarr’s greatest achievement in this book in in the way she captures the suburban teen lifestyle.  Having been an angsty suburban teen myself, I could identify with the boredom and trapped nature of the characters.  While Deanna’s journey out of passivity is interesting and very well written, I had trouble getting into it.  The characters are well fleshed out but I felt like the story was so internal that there just wasn’t a lot happening in terms of plot.  Part of this may have been exacerbated by the fact that I listened to the audio version of the book which, like her other book Sweethearts, read by the Zarr.  Like many author read audiobooks, I found the narration just a little bit off.  I love you Sara, but please stop reading your books in the audiobooks!

So in summary:  well written, realistic, good characters, but a little bit emotionally internal and slow on plot.  Not for reluctant readers, but fans of slower paced realistic fiction will find something here.  Set in the bay area town of Pacifica, which adds bonus amusement if you, like me, live in or near the bay area.