tiny pink books

House of Stairs by William Sleator
(first published 1974)

A small group of unrelated 16-year-old foster teens finds themselves trapped in an endless room full of impossible stairs and ledges.  They don’t know how or why they got there or what they are supposed to go.  They find a machine and quickly learn that it will give them food when they perform seemingly random tasks.  As the machine manipulates them to further and further degrees, personalities among the group begin to clash.  Tensions grow and the stakes are raised in this strange psychological mystery.

I can’t say that I loved The House of Stairs (however, I can say that I LOVED this cover…I mean, just look at it!).  Despite the teen age of the characters, this is most definitely a children’s book rather than a teen book.  I liked the intriguing plot elements and setting, however, the emotional drama of the book was really predictable, with the characters acting more like archetypes than people.  I picked it up after hearing that it was a good readalike to The Hunger Games or even Maze Runner and, after reading it, I could not disagree with the comparison more!  The plot is simple, the characters are whiny and act much, much more like children than teens and the story, while mysterious, does not actually include any action.  I think kids and tweens who are really into science fiction might enjoy this one, but I’d be much more likely to direct them to John Christopher’s work instead.

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.

North of Beautiful by Justina Chen Headley
Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, 2009

Sixteen year old Terra would be drop dead gorgeous, if not for the port wine stain birthmark on her left cheek.  Years of surgery after surgery have failed to remove it and years of living under the thumb of her psychologically abusive father have left Terra feeling imperfect and damaged.  When a new family, including a strangely attractive goth boy, befriends Terra and her mother, everything changes for both of them.

This was a decent book, though I found the writing to be a bit long and meandering.  There is a mapmaker theme to the story as well, which is taken, in my opinion, a too far with a wealth of map/journey metaphors.  Still, I’d recommend this book to girls who want long, heart

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.

Liar

Liar by Justine Larbalestier
Bloomsbury Children’s Books, 2009

Told from the point of view of an admittedly compulsive liar, Liar is a psychological mystery with just a dash of the supernatural.  Micah lies constantly.  From pretending to be a boy at school, to her father’s occupation, Micah is compelled and fascinated with telling lies.  When her classmate and secret boyfriend Zach is found dead in Central Park, everyone suspects Micah, the liar, as his killer.  As Micah takes readers through the last few days of Zach’s life, she spins a web of strange and dark secrets.

Liar was an odd book.  From the very beginning, it has a strange, haunted feeling to it.  The lonely and dark tone of the writing at first reminded Speak (and books like it), but with a plot so uniquely crafted, I can’t fairly compare Liar to anything.  Without giving too much of the book away, I will say that there is a major revelation, mid-book, that changed the story completely.  At first I was frustrated (I actually threw the book down, shouting, “Seriously?!”), but I plodded on and became quite fascinated by the end.  Liar was definitely one of those books that grows on you over the read and in the aftermath.  Thought provoking and strange, writing becomes somewhat captivating.  I wouldn’t recommend it to reluctant readers, but for a special reader who wants a book that is intriguing and mysterious, this is your book!  A little bit science fiction, a teensy bit fantastic, and a lot of deep, almost tortured, character study, Liar is quality book that will hopefully find an audience between these genres.

Tales of the Madman Undergound:  An Historical Romance 1973 by John Barnes
Viking Juvenile, 2009

An interesting and unique book, Tales of a Madman Underground is an epic coming of age novel by John Barnes.  With over 500 pages, Madman chronicles the first six days of Karl Shoemaker’s senior year in high school in 1973 in epic detail.  Though his life is,a t surface level, dark and tumultuous, Karl manages.  His father is dead, his cat-collecting, drunk mother steals from him, he works more jobs than any teenager should, people think he’s a psychopath, and his friends consist of the other messed up kids in school–all of them forced to attend a therapy group at school, dubbed “The Madman Underground.”  As Karl struggles through this heap of problems, he discovers the strength of his relationships with both his friends and his community.

I really enjoyed this book and despite this, although I’m sure I would have enjoyed it as a teen, I’m not sure if the YA section is the best place for it.  Sure, it’s about teenagers and it is a coming of age story in the truest sense, but it’s also very nostalgic and feels more reminiscent of adolescence than the immediacy we usually encounter in YA literature.  It’s not just that it is set in the 1970’s (though that is part of it)…it has some very adult themes (and language, to boot!) that made me wonder if this book is really going to work for the YA audience.  It appealed to me as a good book with that perfect balance of funny/sad characters, but it just didn’t scream “teen appeal” to me.  I’ve had it on display in my library for two weeks now with no takers, but I’m hoping that buzz will grow and this book will find an audience.  Older teens, those who can handle the length at least, will pick this up if word of mouth grows, but I would hesitate before recommending it to a young readers.  Additionally, I really think that adults (especially guys), particularly younger adults (twenty-something, early adults, whatever you call them), will really enjoy this.  If only there was a way for them to find it…

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.

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies:  The Classic Regency Romance - Now With Ultraviolent Zombie Mayham!
by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith
Quirk Books, 2009

Preserving most of the original text of Pride and Prejudice, this modified classic now includes zombies and a horror twist.  The “strange plague” going around England is actually that of zombies.  Elizabeth Bennet and her sisters have been trained in “the deadly arts” to be, no longer just well-mannered young ladies, but zombie slayers of the finest caliber as they putter about society before being married off.  Mr. Darcy has also been transformed into a gentlemanly, zombie slaying hero.

And now to admit something that perhaps will sway your view of me as a reader–until it was available in zombie fused fashion, I have never read Pride and Prejudice. Although I was forced to read some other Austen novels in high school, they never moved me, a true tomboy at heart, enough to seek out anything more.  It wasn’t until there were zombies and a concept so hilarious (fancy, well-mannered ladies zombie slaying!) that I just had to pick it up.  Pick it up I did and it was in doing so that I realized that, while the zombie bits are funny, the real goodness of the book is in Austen’s original work.  I found myself enjoying the characters and the original humor enough that, at times, the zombie interruptions felt just like that–like interruptions.  Although I credit Grahame-Smith for coming up with such a wonderful concept and for fusing it in some seamlessly, the quality of the book still lies in the original work.

All in all, the postmodern, zombie mashup concept is a good way to get reluctant readers slightly more interested in Jane Austen.  I could see this being successfully used in high school English classes to make Austen (slightly) more appealing to boys and girls.  At the same time, I can see why Austen fans might be offended at the addition of ironically place gore and grossness in such a beloved classic.  I think it’s important to recognize that this zombie version of Pride and Prejudice, will never replace the original text.  It’s just a fun twist that may get non-Austen readers (like me) to pick up and *actually enjoy* Pride and Prejudice.