Radiate (YA)

Radiate. Marley Gibson. 2012.  Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. 416 pages.

You know how you always think there's something...more?

Months before her Senior year in high school, our heroine, Hayley Matthews decides to give up marching band and try out for the varsity cheerleading squad. She isn't sure she'll make it, even though she knows how to tumble and is a fast-learner when it comes to dance. She makes the team--to her delight--and then her real struggles begin. But don't worry, these struggles all work together for her good.

ETA: The author thinks there should be a spoiler alert for my review, and I'm happy to comply. There is nothing in my review that the reader wouldn't learn for themselves after the first few chapters, or even after the prologue, but if you want to truly pick this one up knowing nothing about it. Don't read the rest of the review. Just don't. 

I'm not sure I like the prologue to Radiate. I'm not saying I hate it. I don't. It's just that sometimes you don't want to be told on page one that a book is a cancer-book. (Okay, it's not page one, but it is in the first few pages.) Not when there are chapters--quite a handful of chapters--to be read before she even goes to the doctor about a suspicious lump and a pain that just won't go away.

So our heroine Hayley is making new friends in the days and weeks following the announcement that she's now on the squad. And surprise, surprise the boy that she's liked since forever knows who she is now. And he can't stop flirting with her. Fortunately, Hayley is so smitten, so very, very smitten, that she fails to see he has any personality, any depth, any genuineness to him. Unfortunately--at least for this reader--I found little charm or charisma. In fact, I saw right away that he was so not the one for Hayley. That there was no way in the world he could possibly be there for Hayley when things got rough. But the lack of depth in the boyfriend is partially made well by the fact that there's a cute boy next door that has just come back to town. A boy that she grew up with. A boy that seems to genuinely see Hayley as a real person and not an object.

Did I like Radiate? Well. I'm not sure. On the one hand, it's hard not to cheer for a cheerleader who overcomes such harsh obstacles. She shows determination and courage, there is a real genuineness to her, a sincerity that makes her anything but shallow. But at the same time, the book lacks other developed characters. I had a hard time with most of the minor characters--including the boyfriend and the rest of the cheerleaders, for the most part. The family, on the other hand, had a little more depth. I felt there was definite potential there. I could see how this family functioned--or didn't function, as the case may be. For everything I liked about the novel--and there were quite a handful of things I liked about it--I found little things that didn't quite work for me. One thing that bothered me--and it's a thing that may not bother other readers at all--was the fact that this family was displayed as a Christian family, our heroine, so we're told is a Christian. Yet the novel itself uses language I wouldn't feel comfortable recommending to Christian readers. (Though it's miles away from being Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist!)

Read Radiate

• If you're looking for a happy-ending Cancer book
• If you're looking for a YA book with a realistic school setting
• If you love reading about cheerleaders and football games
• If you love stories about how the boy-next-door is a much better catch than that oh-so-secret-crush you've had for years and years

© 2012 Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

The Squad: Killer Spirit

Barnes, Jennifer Lynn. 2008. The Squad: Killer Spirit. Random House. 324 pages.

Once upon a time, I thought that the cheerleaders at my high school were no more capable of intelligent thought or true athleticism than the average dachshund. Suffice to say that unless the wiener dogs of the world have been holing out on me--big time--I was very, very wrong.

This book is the sequel to The Squad: Perfect Cover. Both books are great fun in a quirky, sarcastic meets Alias kinda way. Both books star a teen girl, Toby, who unexpectedly finds herself chosen to be a cheerleader. But not just any cheerleader, no, the super-fun, undercover-spy, working-for-the-government, top-secret, glitter-wearing kind of cheerleader. Transitioning from proud-loner to popular-cheerleader hasn't been easy for Toby. The first book is about the recruitment and Toby's first few weeks. The second book opens a few weeks after the close of the first novel. It's fall and homecoming is approaching. But a big case has come up as well. The book balances both the danger and treachery of spies working on a tricky case and the typical high school melodrama centering on homecoming, football, pep rallies, and homecoming courts. (Who will be Queen? Who will be princess? Who will go with whom to the dance?) You can read an excerpt from the book here.

What I love most about this one? Besides the general snarkiness of Toby? The friction-filled, chemistry-packed always-on-the-verge-of-developing relationship between Jack and Toby (or "Ev" as he calls her short for "Everyone knows Toby.") This is the scene right after Toby learns that she has been nominated for Homecoming Queen...along with all the other members of the cheerleading squad.

"Fancy meeting you here." Jack spoke into the back of my head, but I knew it was him.
Darn Noah. Darn the PTA president. Darn Hayley Hoffman.
"Aren't you going to say something, Ev?"
I muttered an expletive under my breath, and Jack smiled.
"That's my girl."
"I'm not your girl," I said sharply.
He stepped closer, until the rest of the crowd felt miles away by comparison. "You could be."
There were times when I almost couldn't restrain myself around him, times when I wanted to kiss him again so badly that my lips literally hurt. This wasn't one of them. He was being suave and smooth, and I wasn't falling for it.
"Yeah," I said, "and I could also tattoo an anorexic pterodactyl on my navel, but I'm not planning to do that either."
"Anorexic pterodactyl." He repeated my words, and the self-assured smirk on his face was replaced with repressed amusement. "Sounds more like a butt tattoo to me."
It was comments like that one that did me in. He could wax poetic about me being his girl or how beautiful I was or whatever from now until graduation, and it wouldn't inspire anything in me other than the desire to spell out for him just how much of a tool I thought he was. But the moment he started snarking or quipping or admiring my snarky quippiness, I was a goner.
"I'll make you a deal, Ev. You go to homecoming with me, and I'll save you from having to go to the God Squad after-party."
He knew how to sweet-talk a girl. He really knew how to sweet-talk a girl....

But will she say yes? Did she say yes? Can she survive long enough to get to the dance? Read and see!


© Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews
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Dead is the New Black

Perez, Marlene. 2008. Dead is the New Black.

Dead is the New Black is similar in premise to Zombie Blondes which I reviewed earlier this week. Both books feature teen girls hesitant to join cheer leading squads, but who eventually give in despite the fact that there are clues this might prove deadly. But they're very different books in style and tone and theme. I loved Zombie Blondes. But I enjoyed this one too. A lot.

First sentence: "Being dead became fashionable approximately forty-five minutes after Samantha "the Divine" Devereaux came back from summer break."

It continues, "Although stylish as ever, there was still something off about the Divine Deveareaux. She strolled down the hall wearing a cleavage-baring top, a miniskirt, and stiletto heels. Her long blond hair had been freshly highlighted." So far sounds pretty normal, right? Stay with me, "But unlike after previous summer vacations, Samantha didn't have that sun-kissed Cabo glow. Her skin was, forgive the phrase, dead white. A large silver pendant hung around her neck, but I couldn't get a close look at it. I wasn't the only one trying to sneak a peek, because heads turned mor than usual as she strutted down the hall. 'Get out of my way, Daisy,' she snapped at me as she passed by. She was only slightly hampered by the coffin she was dragging behind her."

I think the first page was effective (in my opinion) of drawing the reader in. Our narrator--our heroine--is a teen named Daisy. Daisy has an interesting family--all her family--mother and sisters--have special psychic powers. But Daisy, "poor" Daisy, has none. Her mom helps solve cases--homicide mostly. And when our novel opens, there is an ongoing mystery. Someone (or something) is preying on teen girls. And for some reason, her mother can't get a sense of who or how or why. But Daisy and her best friend, Ryan, will take on the case secretly to see if they can't puzzle this one out on their own.

Family drama. School drama. Light romance. Supernatural mysteries. It's a fun and playful book that entertains. The book is set in the obviously fictional town of Nightshade. And with a name like that, well, expect some supernatural residents. This is the first in a new series, the next book, Dead is a State of Mind, will be out in 2009.

© Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews