The Unwritten Rule (YA)

Scott, Elizabeth. 2010. The Unwritten Rule. Simon & Schuster. 210 pages. (April 2010, tentatively)

I liked him first, but it doesn't matter.
I still like him.
That doesn't matter either.
Or at least, it's not supposed to.

Sarah has liked Ryan for years. (Since he asked her to a dance back in eighth grade.) But when her friend, Brianna, makes a (successful) move on the new-and-improved Ryan at an end-of-summer party, Sarah feels guilty for wishing things were oh-so-different. Everything is complicated because Brianna is always insisting that Sarah come along when the she and Ryan hang out and when they "study" together. The three do get along together surprisingly well. But. Sarah can't help wishing that she was with Ryan.

Does she have reason to hope? How does Ryan see her? Does he see her like that? Would it matter if he did? Would she still choose to play by the rules if she knew that he cared for her too?

There are a million rules for being a girl. There are a million things you have to do to get through each day. High school has things that can trip you up, ruin you, people smile and say one thing and mean another, and you have to know all the rules, you have to know what you can and can't do. And one of them is this: You don't kiss your best friend's boyfriend. You don't do it once. You certainly don't do it twice. (116)

I enjoyed this one. The friendship between Sarah and Brianna is complicated. Good, bad, ugly, it's all there. And it's nice to see a book explore how some friendships can turn toxic somewhere along the way. But that's not to say Brianna can be summed up in a simple little word like toxic. She plays both victim and bully. Both Brianna and Sarah are human, flawed. And I love that. I love it when a book takes the time to develop characters and relationships. Scott's characters are always unique and quirky and have interesting (or sometimes not so interesting) lives. (Sarah's thing is for designing sneakers.)

I really love Elizabeth Scott. I really have loved all of her books: Love You Hate You Miss You, Something Maybe, Living Dead Girl, Stealing Heaven, Perfect You, and Bloom. Each has its place. And I'd definitely recommend all of them.

The quotes are from the ARC, so they are subject to change before the book is published in the spring of 2010. (The ARC was provided by the publisher.)

© Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

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Black Angels (MG, YA)

Brown, Linda Beatrice. 2009. Black Angels. Penguin. 260 pages.

Luke took the key out of the sideboard drawer in the dining room, took a rifle and put the key back very carefully.

Luke is a slave contemplating running away. He hopes to join up with the Union army. He isn't quite sure where or how. But he's ready to go off on an adventure. When he sets out initially, he is hoping to meet up with others. He's heard a handful of other slaves arranging a meeting place and time. But either he's too early or too late. But he's not to be alone for long. No, he'll meet up with two children as different as can be--at least on the surface. A slave girl, Daylily, who is fleeing from the horror of war. (She witnessed several murders at the hands of soldiers. She knows that if her hiding place had been discovered, she'd be dead as well.) And a young white boy, Caswell, who is also lost and alone and afraid. Can these three seemingly unlikely friends find a way to survive. Can they discover they're more alike than different? Can Luke lead them all to safety? Will any of the three ever find a "home" again?

This book is about survival, war, and friendship. It spans roughly a decade (though it focuses on a few months of the war). It was so compelling. Hard to put down.

© Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

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Bystander (MG)

Preller, James. 2009. Bystander. Feiwel and Friends. 226 pages.

The first time Eric Hayes ever saw him, David Hallenback was running, if you could call it that, running in a halting, choppy-stepped, stumpy-legged shamble, slowing down to look back over his shoulder, stumbling forward, pausing to catch his breath, then lurching forward again.

Bystander is a book about bullying. Eric, our narrator, fits strangely into his new school. New and slightly confused, he begins associating with the wrong crowd. Kids he knows to be bullies. Because--at least at first--he's not the target of the bullying, he accepts everything. There are a few instances here and there that make him squirm. But at the same time, it's easy to laugh along with the other kids, the other witnesses or bystanders. As long as the bullying isn't too much--then he's not willing to speak up about it. But there comes a time when it does get to be too much. When what he witnesses makes him so uncomfortable that he wakes up and gets a conscience. But now that he doesn't want to be all buddy-buddy with his former friends, will he become the next target? Will standing up for what he knows to be right lead to his own fall? And can he live with that if it is?

What's a boy to do when so many of the kids around him are bullies? True, not everyone bullies with kicks and punches, but there are so many different ways of bullying. Why does everyone have to be so mean in middle school?

This is more of a message-oriented novel.

© Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

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Brushing Mom's Hair (YA)

Cheng, Andrea. 2009. Brushing Mom's Hair. Wordsong. 60 pages.

Ann's mom has breast cancer, and this has changed everything. Just fourteen, Ann is worrying about so much, such heavy stuff, she wishes that life could be, would be okay again. Brushing Mom's Hair is a verse novel told from a young teen's perspective on how cancer changes her family.

This is the opening poem:

Ballet

We stretch,
thin arms
touching toes.
Linda says,
Can you believe
my mom's friend
had one of her breasts
cut off?
Becky covers her mouth
with her hand.
Really?
I look at them
in the mirror,
eyebrows raised,
eyes open
wide.
I bend
and touch my forehead
to my knee.
I don't say,
My mom
had both her breasts cut off
and now she has stitches
covered by bandages
where they were.

It's a quick read. An emotional story as you'd expect as each family member seeks to cope in their own way. Each finds a way to deal with their own emotions and at the same time to provide support for the one with cancer.

© Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

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Wanting Mor (MG, YA)

Khan, Rukhsana. 2009. Wanting Mor. Groundwood Books. 190 pages.

I thought she was sleeping.

Jameela is a young Afghan girl with a world of sorrow. After losing her mother (the Mor in the title), her father decides to sell what he can, pack what he can, and head back to Kabul. He is her only family, and so while she doesn't want to leave the only home she's known, her place is with him. Even if she doesn't like her father's choices and the company he keeps.

Jameela treasures up every memory she has of her mother. Mor always told Jameela that "if you can't be beautiful, you should at least be good." And Jameela feels those words must be true. If she can just be good enough, work hard enough, the people around her should start to appreciate her, respect her, and maybe just maybe come to care for her. She knows she isn't beautiful. She was born with a cleft lip. But surely she is more than that. She is more than her imperfect face. Can anyone look beyond and see what strength, what devotion lies beneath?

This was an emotional read for me. Jameela was such a strong (yet vulnerable) heroine. I loved her resilience and respected her devotion to her faith. This book is set in 2001 in Afghanistan.

© Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

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Al Capone Shines My Shoes (MG, YA)

Choldenko, Gennifer. 2009. Al Capone Shines My Shoes. Penguin. 275 pages.

Nothing is the way it's supposed to be when you live on an island with a billion birds, a ton of bird crap, a few dozen rifles, machine guns, and automatics, and 278 of America's worst criminals--"the cream of the criminal crop" as one of our felons likes to say. The convicts on Alcatraz are rotten to the core, crazy in the head, and as slippery as eels in axle grease.

This is the sequel to Al Capone Does My Shirts. And I liked it. Moose Flanagan is still a compelling narrator. I *still* don't know what Moose sees in Piper. How he can possibly like her like her when a wonderful girl like Annie is around. But Moose is still a good guy, even if he doesn't have the best taste in girls. If you thought life would calm down after Natalie, Moose's autistic sister, got accepted into a special school, then think again. Life gets very, very messy in the sequel. An exciting messy though. And a scary messy now that I think about it.

This one is a unique historical fiction novel about family and friends, criminals and baseball. (This one is set in 1935.) I don't want to tell you *too* much about the book itself. Because some books are just like that. There is joy in discovering the book for yourself. But I can say that I enjoyed this one. I found it an exciting, compelling read. I didn't know quite what to expect. I didn't know if I would like it as much as I liked the first book. I wasn't sure--at the start--that the book "needed" a sequel. I'm still not convinced that the sequel had to happen. (I think the first one stands alone just fine.) But the sequel is good. It wasn't a disappointment. It was nice to revisit these characters. So I'm definitely glad I read it!

I love the author's note on this one.

Other reviews:

The Bluestocking Society,
Kids Lit
Killin’ Time Reading
The Novel World
Peaceful Reader
Welcome to My Tweendom

© Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

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Positively (MG)

Sheinmel, Courtney. 2009. Positively. Simon & Schuster. 216 pages.

When my mother died I imagined God was thinking, "One down, and one to go."

Our heroine, Emerson Price has known she was HIV positive since she was four. (She's now 13.) But when her mother dies, Emmy's world begins to collapse. (Her mother had AIDS.) She's sent to live with her father and stepmother. (There's a little one on the way too.) And Emmy begins to question everything.

Why is she taking her medications if she's just going to die anyway? (Why didn't the meds work for her mother???) Why bother if she's never going to have a normal life? If she's never going to have the opportunity of growing up, falling in love, being with someone, and starting her own family? Can one girl find the will to live her life to the fullest? Can Emmy work past the anger and bitterness and realize that there are plenty of reasons to live, to love living?

After several desperate cries for help (not that Emmy would say they were desperate cries for help), her parents (father and stepmother) decide to send her to Camp Positive. A six-week camp for children with HIV. Can the camp experience change Emmy's life? Can this broken family be healed? Is there hope for Emmy yet?

Positively is a heartbreaking (in some ways raw) novel about grief and brokenness. It's a redemptive novel about finding hope, family, and friendship in unexpected places. This one is a compelling book, one that I couldn't put down.

© Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

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The Indigo King

Owen, James A. The Chronicles of the Imaginarium Geographica: The Indigo King. Simon & Schuster. 375 pages.

Hurrying along one of the tree-lined paths at Magdalen College in Oxford, John glanced up at the cloud-clotted sky and decided that he rather liked the English weather. Constant clouds made for soft light; soft light that cast no shadows. And John liked to avoid shadows as much as possible.

The third in the series. (The first book: Here There Be Dragons; The second book: The Search for the Red Dragon). This fantasy stars three Inklings: C.S. Lewis (Jack), J.R.R. Tolkien (John), and Charles Williams. (Though the Charles in this novel isn't the Charles we really know. But that is a long story!) It is also sprinkled with other writers (aka Caretakers) including H.G. Wells (Bert), and Jules Verne. New caretakers are being discovered in each book and it is fun to see which writers are the good guys and which ones aren't.

It's been fourteen years since these three Oxfordians became Caretakers of the Imaginarium Geographica. And these years have been sprinkled with adventure here and there. (Which of course you're encouraged to read about in the first two books.) In case you don't remember, an accident in the second book (I believe it was the second book anyway) caused troubles with time, with the time line. And those troubles erupt in this third novel. Jack and John (and friends) are traveling here, there, everywhere in time trying to solve problems and prevent catastrophic changes in the timeline. If they don't succeed, the world as we know it may never exist. It can be a bit complex. But it's a good and satisfying kind of complex, in my opinion. We have Jack and John meeting some very interesting characters (both human and animal) along the way. And there are a few fun twists. And new characters. Including Hugo Dyson.

This one does play around with the theme of King Arthur, Merlin, Mordred, The Green Knight, and The Holy Grail. So if you're in the Arthurian challenge, you can count this one.

Other reviews: Rhinoa, Semicolon, Deslily.


© Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

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The Devil's Paintbox

McKernan, Victoria. 2009. The Devil's Paintbox. Random House. 360 pages.

Aiden Lynch slid down the steep creek bank, dirt crumbling beneath his bare feet and dust rising in a cloud behind him.

This is a difficult read. Emotionally that is. Especially if you are allergic to westerns. Aiden and his younger sister, Maddy, are starving to death. As in eating dirt and splitting up small bugs between them starving. If no one intervenes, it's only a matter of time until they both die. Their parents have died. And their neighbors have all scattered. Some have died. Some have moved away. But regardless, these two are isolated from the world. (The setting is Kansas in 1865.)

These two are given a second chance when Jefferson J. Jackson stumbles upon them. If Aiden agrees to work two years in a lumber camp (one year for himself, one year for his sister) then Jackson will let them join his wagon on a wagon train west. But the Oregon Trail holds so many dangers--some expected, some not so much--and their survival is never a guarantee. Every day almost seems to be a life-and-death matter.

The heart of this one turns out (in a way) to be about small pox and the oh-so-controversial vaccinations for small pox. Who deserves the chance to be vaccinated? Who doesn't? Should everyone be vaccinated? Should race and class matter? How much prejudice is involved?

This is a novel that makes you think. About the war. About the effects of the war. About prejudice. About what is right and wrong. About friendships. About life and death too.

It's a bit raw-and-rough on the emotions.

© Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

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Sacred Scars

Duey, Kathleen. 2009. Sacred Scars. Simon & Schuster. 554 pages.

Sadima sat cross-legged on the cold stone, just outside the cage. She was holding her slate so the boys could see the symbol she had drawn. Most of them were trying to copy it. Two stolen lanterns hung from the iron bars above their heads, held in place by some Market Square merchant's missing tarp hooks. The rest of the vast cavern was dark.

Is magic good or bad? Is it more harmful than helpful? Should anyone be allowed to use it? Even if it is supposedly for the benefit of all? Sacred Scars is the sequel to Skin Hunger. Both books are complex. Not easily summarized. The book continues its dual narration. We have Sadima's story--her being torn between love and hate. Hating Somiss, loving Franklin, and being oh-so-confused about magic but wanting to preserve the (gypsy) songs all the same. We have Hahp, a young man, who among others, is tortuously being taught magic by the wizards. These teens (I'm assuming they are teens) are being deprived of so very much. (In a way, it reminds me of the cruelty of battle school in Ender's Game only this is five hundred times worse.) Their stories are generations apart at least--perhaps hundreds of years. Yet the two share overlapping characters. How can this be? Well, you won't really find any answers in Sacred Scars.

This is the second in the series. And I'm only assuming more is to come. Because the story does not have a resolution. Not even close. True, it doesn't end quite as cliff-hanger-y as the first one did. But still. No resolution. Over five-hundred pages and there are still more questions than answers.

I'm torn about this series. On the one hand, they're complex and (almost) always compelling. You don't always know what is going on. You don't have a clue where it's heading. But somehow you care anyway. Or maybe I should just say I cared anyway. But on the other hand, these are two very long books and we're not any closer to having the answers, to having the story make sense. I kept waiting for a time where I could finally say that all the pieces had come together. A place where I could come to appreciate the complexity of it.

One thing Kathleen Duey did do well with both books is make both narrators compelling. It's hard to do when the stories and plots are so different (in a way) from one another. In books set in two time periods it's really really hard to make the reader care about both (in my opinion). And Kathleen Duey did do that for me. So I can say it was well-written. I just wish I'd gotten more satisfaction from the experience.

© Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

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Crossing Stones

Frost, Helen. 2009. Crossing Stones. FSG. 184 pages.

You'd better straighten out your mind, Young Lady.

Loved, loved, loved this verse novel by Helen Frost. It's historical fiction. A drama following the lives of two families. The Jorgensens and The Normans. The year is 1917 (and 1918). We've got many narrators (both male and female), many stories. Emma and Frank Norman. Ollie and Muriel Jorgensen. Frank loves Muriel. (Does she love him like that though?) Ollie loves Emma.
But war has its own role to play in the lives of these two families. It changes everything. It changes what should be and what could be. It confuses everyone, taints everything. Will anyone be the same after it is all over?

Women's suffrage. World War I. Spanish influenza. Muriel, Ollie, and Emma are coming of age at a difficult time in American history. Muriel is arguably the strongest narrator of the bunch. She believes in peace, hates that American soldiers are getting involved in the war, hates the fact that the men in her life--Frank and Ollie--are wanting to go to war, enlisting. She's a suffragist--in her dreams at least. She supports the cause. Even though she's not actively involved in marches and protests and such. Like her aunt.

The book examines how war--this war in particular--shaped the men and women of that generation.

What did I love about this book? Just about everything! I loved the setting. Felt it very rich in detail. Loved the feeling of losing myself in another time and place. I loved getting a look at what life was like (or what it could have been like at the very least) during this time period. So much of what I read--when it comes to war--is set during World War II, so it was refreshing to see this one about World War I. It was interesting to me. Compelling. The poetry was great. Loved the different voices--each narrator was unique, and I appreciated all the different perspectives. I loved that it made me think, really think. It's one that I'd definitely recommend to those in my life that can't get enough historical fiction.

© Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

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The Unfinished Angel (MG)

Creech, Sharon. 2009. The Unfinished Angel. 164 pages. HarperCollins.

Peoples are strange!
The things they are doing and saying--sometimes they make no sense. Did their brains fall out of their heads? And why so much saying, so much talking all the time day and night, all those words spilling out of those mouths? Why so much? Why don't they be quiet?

This is a strange but strangely lovely little book. Very quirky. Not for everyone. But for some readers, this may be a delightful little read. It's narrated by an angel, an angel who feels a little 'unfinished' at times. He (or she for that matter, I don't know that it ever says one way or the other...at least not that I can recall) has been living in a stone tower of the Casa Rosa, a tiny village in the Swiss Alps for centuries. This angel has watched over the villagers for hundreds and hundreds of years. Sometimes choosing to get involved, and sometimes not so much. This book takes place at a time when the angel is choosing to become involved--mainly because of a lovely but lonely little girl named Zola.

Me, I am an angel. I am supposed to be having all the words in all the languages, but I am not. Many are missing. I am also not having a special assignment. I think I did not get all the training. (2)

You won't believe this, but there are peoples who pay money to other peoples to wash their hairs and even to paint colors on their toes. Is really! And in the same world of peoples there are other peoples who have to crawl in the dirt scrounging for a measly piece of garbage to eat. I am not fabbagrating. Don't get me started.
At night I swish in the heads of the peoples with the clean hairs and feets, showing them the peoples crawling in the dirt, but in the morning when the clean peoples wake up they have already forgotten. I think maybe it is my fault that they forget so quick and so it is my fault that there are peoples who have to crawl in the dirt. I am not knowing enough. What are the other angels doing? (26-27)

I am a little crankiful when I am not sleeping well. (60)

As I said, this one might not appeal to every reader. But I think it is delightful in its own little way. I thought it was an interesting book with a unique narrative voice. The word choice and style may be a little off-putting for some readers, but it may work well with others. I know that I'll probably be borrowing words like crankiful. I only wish I'd thought to make a list of all the words I liked. Some were really quite clever.

© Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

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Never Slow Dance With A Zombie (YA)

Van Lowe, E. 2009. Never Slow Dance With A Zombie. Tor Teen. 253 pages.

Do you think I'm a failure?

This one was fun. In a way. Definitely not for everybody. I think you have to have a certain sense of humor to like zombie books. Especially zombie books that are more funny than scary. (Though me, I'll take a funny zombie book over a 'scary' one any day). Our heroine Margot Jean Johnson is not happy with herself. Here it is her junior year in high school, and she has failed to do anything on her list. She's not popular. She doesn't have a boyfriend. She doesn't go to parties. She doesn't have a car. Things are just not going like they're supposed to. But when the entire high school (well, almost all) turns into zombies (students and teachers alike), things begin to look up for her. Is this her chance to be everything she was meant to be? Popular and bossy and in control? Is this her chance to get her dream boyfriend? Even if it means bribing him with raw meat? Does she really know what she wants?

This isn't just Margot's story--though she is the star--it also features her best friend, Sybil, and her best friend who-happens-to-be-a-boy, Baron.

© Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

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All the Broken Pieces (MG)

Burg, Ann E. 2009. All the Broken Pieces: A Novel In Verse. Scholastic. 220 pages.

My name is Matt Pin
and her name, I remember,
is Phang My.
His name
I will never say,
though forever I carry his blood
in my blood,
forever his bones
stretch in my bones.
To me,
he is nothing.
If he stumbled on me now,
I wonder,
would he see himself in my eyes?
And I?
Would I recognize the dragon
who went beyond the mountain
and never came back?

Thus opens All The Broken Pieces by Ann E. Burg. A verse novel about so much more than Vietnam and baseball. It's been two years since Matt has come to America and been placed with a new family: a new mom and dad and brother. But time isn't healing everything. Sometimes silence speaks volumes. How can his new family help Matt the most? How can they start him on the right path, the path to healing and peace? How can they support him best?

The verse is incredibly well-written. It was so powerful and compelling. It had so many wow-moments for me. Little poems that I just had to read over and over again because they resonated so deep and strong.

My top drawer
is full of pencils, new,
used, half-used, and
all-the-way-to-the-eraser-cap used.
I never get rid of pencils.
I never get rid of anything.
Who knows?
Even a stub
is worth something.

If bombs fall here,
if something terrible
ever happens
that I get sent away,
I'll stuff everything
I can fit
into my pockets.

Even the broken pieces
are worth something
to me. (58-59)

What did I love about this one? It had heart and soul. I loved Matt. I ached for him really. He was hurting so deeply, yet he didn't know how to reach out for help. He needed love so desperately, and yet he was afraid that his new family didn't love him enough. He thought his mother loved him, but she gave him away. That's how he sees it. Can Matt learn the power of love? And what that love sometimes means.

So yes, this book is about baseball. Because baseball is one of the things that helps Matt most. And being on a team, being a part of the team helps heal him in so many ways. Even if it means struggling a bit to find that place on the team.

I think this one works really, really well. I just loved it.

Other reviews: Kids Lit, A Year of Reading, Reading Junky's Reading Roost, Semicolon, Musings of a Book Addict.

© Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

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Emma-Jean Lazarus Fell Out of A Tree (MG)

Tarshis, Lauren. 2007. Emma Jean Lazarus Fell Out of A Tree. Penguin. 200 pages.

Emma Jean Lazarus knew very well that a few of the seventh grade girls at William Gladstone Middle School were criers. They cried if they got a 67 on an algebra test or if they dropped their retainer into the trash in the cafeteria. They cried if their clay mug exploded in the kiln and when they couldn't finish the mile in gym. Two even cried in science, when Mr. Petrowski announced it was time to dissect a sheep's eyeball. Of course Emma-Jean had no intention of participating in such a barbaric and unhygienic activity. But crying was not a logical way to express one's opposition to the seventh-grade science curriculum.

Emma Jean is unique, no doubt about it. (You can tell that from the start. She has her own voice, her own way of seeing the world, of expressing herself.) But can she learn to be less logical and more compassionate? Can she use her powers of observation, her logic to help others, to make new friends, to keep old ones? Emma Jean has heart--I don't doubt that for a second--but can she learn how to interact better with others?

Set in middle school, it features students--some with bigger problems than others--all trying to do the best they can. (Yes, there's a bully or two, a mean girl or two, but there are plenty of nice students with friend-potential.)

I don't think I've done the book much justice at all. I think I've failed to communicate just how great a story it is. Emma Jean is someone you really should get to know--on her own terms of course! (There are two stories about Emma Jean now.)

© Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

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Dance With A Vampire (YA)

Schreiber, Ellen. 2007. Dance with a Vampire. HarperCollins. 178 pages.

I awoke from a deadly slumber entombed in Alexander's coffin.

I haven't decided if I'm going to keep going with this series of vampire books or not. Dance With The Vampire is the fourth in the Vampire Kisses series. (The first three books were recently released in a single book entitled Beginnings.) On the one hand, they're quick--very quick. Like eating a pixy stick. And depending on what you're looking for in a book--it could be satisfying enough I suppose. But I didn't find it necessarily 'filling' enough for me to really enjoy. What is this one about? It's about Alexander (the vampire hero) and Raven (the mortal heroine) and their romance--can it survive the danger from other vampires coming into town and making threats? (For the record, the vampire threat is a tween.) And there's also a dance--prom, I think. Expect melodrama--and only melodrama. (In fact, I think I did a bit of eye rolling with the dialogue.)

My eyes filled with tears. I grasped his arm. "I'm happy to know that you thirst for me the same way I thirst for you. I want us to be together--in your world."
"I know, but--"
I put my fingers on his lips.
"That's always been my dream. Since I was a little girl. My middle name is 'Vampire.'"
Alexander took my hand in his. "I never meant to put you in any danger--and that's all I've ever done since I met you...I am a threat to you--on many levels."
"I've never felt threatened by you--only loved..." (176)

I'm sure there are some readers out there who will enjoy this. So do you think I should keep reading and complete this series? Is the fact that they're just so short and easily read reason enough to keep going?

© Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

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Twenty Boy Summer (YA)

Ockler, Sarah. 2009. Twenty Boy Summer. Little, Brown. 290 pages.

Frankie Perino and I were lucky that day. Lucky to be alive -- that's what everyone said. I got a fractured wrist and a banged-up knee, and my best friend Frankie got a fat little scar above her left eye, breaking her eyebrow into two reflective halves. Up one side, down the other. Happy, sad. Shock, awe. Before, after.
Before, all of us were lucky.
After, only me and Frankie.
That's what everyone said.

There's a rightness about Twenty Boy Summer. I don't know how helpful it is to you to know that I felt the novel to be just right. To feel natural and authentic. But it's important to me as a reader to connect with a book, to connect with the characters. And with Twenty Boy Summer, I definitely did. From the start, I began to feel for Anna.

Frankie and Anna are best friends. Always have been, always will be. And when the novel opens, these two share the same pain. Two hearts mourning the loss of one boy, Matt: a brother, a best friend. But is this enough to hold them together during a difficult time? Their friendship is about to be tested when past secrets are brought to light. But just who betrayed who? Can this friendship survive a summer vacation?

It's a novel about friendship, love, and loss. It's about wanting to both hold on and let go. It's about wanting to hold on to yesterday and yet choosing to live for tomorrow. It's about not knowing exactly what you want but knowing that something has to change or is about to change. It's a bittersweet novel--in a way--because it deals with death and grief. But it's good. So I definitely recommend it.

© Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

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Girl in the Arena (YA)

Haines, Lise. 2009. Girl in the Arena. Bloomsbury USA. 336 pages.

The clerk asks for my autograph.

Our heroine, Lyn, is a celebrity by association. She's had seven fathers. Each one a gladiator. Or should I say a neo-gladiator. And as our novel opens, her current father, her seventh father is preparing for a big fight. For some reason, Lyn doesn't quite know why, he's acting strange. Could there be something about this fight that is spooking him? She's not sure. (And neither are we). But destiny seems to be at work. When the fight doesn't go well, Lyn and her family struggle with what to do. Her mother, a widow yet again, is forbidden to remarry. Only seven is the rule. And the powers-that-be, the gladiator sports association, seem to be rewriting rules in their own favor. In such a way that Lyn and her family will lose their home and the most valuable of their possessions unless they do exactly what the association wants. What they want, what they demand is for Lyn to marry her father's killer. To be fair, this killer is young. It's not like they're asking this teen girl to marry a forty year old man or something. But still. The very idea unsettles her. (As it should!) That's unacceptable to her. Can Lyn think of a way to avoid that fate and yet still bring in all the ratings and keep the GSA satisfied?

What did I think of this one? I thought it was an interesting premise in a way. An alternate universe where the gladiator sport became popular and thriving again. This gladiator culture thrives on violence--the bloody gore of it all, the battle-to-the-death thrill of it all. Reading about a culture that cheers violence, that celebrates bloodshed, it was difficult to take at times. I've read books about Ancient Rome in the past and found the ideas disturbing, and reading about them in a modern setting was equally disturbing. The idea of fighting for the fun of it, or for money, it just doesn't sit well with me. I mean it's one thing to fight to the death if you're fighting for something real, something important, something that matters. But to fight for applause, to fight for popularity, to fight for glory? Well, it's unsettling. Lyn feels this. She gets that there is something wrong about this culture. She's grown up with it, but it's still not okay with her. Not really.

Other stops on the tour:

Abby the Librarian, A Patchwork of Books, All About Children’s Books, Becky’s Book Reviews, Fireside Musings, Homeschool Book Buzz, KidzBookBuzz.com, Maw Books Blog, My Own Little Corner of the World, Reading is My Superpower, Through a Child’s Eyes

© Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

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Lips Touch Three Times (YA)

Taylor, Laini. 2009. Lips Touch Three Times. With illustrations by Jim Di Bartolo. Scholastic. 272 pages.

Will I close my eyes?
Will I hold my breath?
Will I wanna cry?
Will our souls connect?
I've been thinking about it when I go to bed
at night I wonder - wonder.

--Mandy Moore, "First Kiss"

Lips Touch Three Times is a collection of three novellas by the oh-so-amazing Laini Taylor. Goblin Fruit. Spicy Little Curses Such As These. Hatchling. Each story revolves around a kiss. Sometimes for good; sometimes for bad.

Are you familiar with Christina Rossetti's Goblin Market? Goblin Fruit uses that story quite cleverly as a basis. If you're already a fan of Goblin Market, I don't know how you could resist this little story. If you're unfamiliar with the original, give this one a try. Trust me. And maybe just maybe you'll want to go back and read Rossetti at some point.

First paragraph of Goblin Fruit:

There is a certain kind of girl the goblins crave. You could walk across a high school campus and point them out: not her, not her, her. The pert, lovely ones with butterfly tattoos in secret places, sitting on their boyfriends' laps? No, not them. The girl watching the lovely ones sitting on their boyfriends' laps? Yes.
Them.
The goblins want girls who dream so hard about being pretty their yearning leaves a palpable trail, a scent goblins can follow like sharks on a soft bloom of blood. The girls with hungry eyes who pray each night to wake up as someone else. Urgent, unkissed, wishful girls.
Like Kizzy. (13)

Kizzy, no questions asked, has a weird family. She grew up listening to her grandmother tell stories about goblins. And her grandmother believed them. Does Kizzy? Everything she knows will be put to the test when Kizzy attracts the attention of the new boy, the oh-so-dreamy new boy at school.

Spicy Little Curses Such As These is the second novella in the collection. And it *may* just be my favorite of the three.

First paragraph of Spicy Little Curses Such As These:

Kissing can ruin lives. Lips touch, sometimes teeth clash. New hunger is born with a throb and caution falls away. A cursed girl with lips still moist from her first kiss might feel suddenly wild, like a little monsoon. She might forget her curse just long enough to get careless and let it come true. She might kill everyone she loves.
She might, and she might not.
A particular demon in India rather hoped that she would.
This is the story of the curse and the kiss, the demon and the girl. It's a love story with dancing and death in it, and singing and souls and shadows reeled out on kite strings. It begins underneath India, on the cusp of the last century when the British were still riding elephants with maharajas and skirmishing on the arid frontiers of the empire.
The story begins in Hell. (69)

This story was a 'wow' one for me. So I don't want to tell too much. I'll just say it's really good and leave it at that. After all, if you're not curious by reading that little intro above, then there's nothing that I can say to persuade you to pick it up! And I don't know about you, but she had me at hello with that name!

The last story is Hatchling. And it is my least favorite of the three. I'm not saying it's a bad story. It may be quite a good story. I don't know. This is one of those where it could be the fact that I was too drowsy to really enjoy it. Or to even understand and appreciate it. Or it could just be that I loved the others so much that this one was a bit of a let down. So it might work for you. (I hope it does!)

Here's how it starts off:

Six days before Esme's fourteenth birthday, her left eye turned from brown to blue. It happened in the night. (145)

It does start off promising, doesn't it?

To set the mood, create the right atmosphere for each novella, each is introduced by a series of illustrations by Jim Di Bartolo. And each novella ends with a closing illustration. (For example, Goblin Fruit has around thirteen pages of illustrations in all.)

This is my first Laini Taylor, but it won't be my last. She has a way with words, a way with fantasy. While not all of the novellas were equally compelling (for me at least), all of them had some oh-so-magical moments. I don't know how to convey just how good she is at creating the right atmosphere for these stories.



Other reviews: Teenreads.com, Reading Rocks, WLS Teens, Em's Bookshelf, Shelf Elf, Charlotte's Library, The Compulsive Reader.

© Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

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Almost Perfect (YA)

Katcher, Brian. 2009. Almost Perfect. Random House. 360 pages.

Everyone has that one line they swear they'll never cross, the one thing they say they'll never do.

Our hero, Logan Witherspoon, is about to be tested. When we first meet him, he's depressed. Ever since he was dumped (after being cheated on) he's been down. His friends have almost given up hope on him. Until. He meets the tall and strangely beautiful new girl. Her name is Sage. And she wows him. It's not that she's oh-so-beautiful. But there is something about her, that just gets to him. She likes him too. Though she seems a bit shy. But he's willing to take a chance on love again, for her. Willing to cross Sage's strict parents. But is there something about Sage--a secret she's keeping--that will doom this relationship before it even has a chance?

Take my advice. DON'T read the jacket flap. All you need to know about this one is that it's a coming of age story with a bittersweet romance. You don't need to know Sage's secret before Logan does.

© Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

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