Vol. 12 #
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Just a reminder, the books reviewed here are recommended. I can't see wasting time reading a book I don't like when there are so many fabulous reads out there. Every book here kept me reading instead of dropping it and going on to the next book.
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Teen Science Fiction/ Utopia/Dystopia
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The United Safer States of America is a desolate place with fears of terrorism and lawsuits running rampant. Bo Marsten, age sixteen, lives with his mother and his grandfather. His father and brother are both in prison. Most labor in the world at this time is performed by prisoners convicted of offenses like road rage, being overweight, and hurting other people’s feelings. The prisons are run by big corporations such as McDonalds and Coke. Even though Bo is trying to do well in school, trying to construct an artificial intelligence on the school computer that will be able to pass the Turing test, he is sentenced to prison for striking a classmate after already being on probation for having brought a rash to school. Sent to a remote camp on the frozen tundra of what was once Canada, surrounded by hungry polar bears, the teen prisoners spend sixteen hour days assembling pizzas while wearing paper clothing. One elite group, called the Gold Shirts only work eight hour days and are given real jeans and shirts to wear as well as having something other than pizza for every meal. Soon enough Bo, who was the fastest runner in his former school, and the other boys who arrived at the prison with him have to try out for the football team and take their chance at becoming Gold Shirts. In the real world of 2076 all dangerous activities such as football have been banned, in fact, just running on a track requires scads of safety equipment and a specially constructed track to insure safety. Hammer, the prison overseer, plucks Bo and his four hundred pound roommate from their pizza assembling team and puts them on the football team where tackling and other anti-social behaviors aren’t only tolerated they are encouraged. The alternative to playing football is taking ones chances in the tundra with the roaming polar bears. This thought provoking page-turner will make the reader ponder the balance of safety and freedom.
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Historical Fiction/ Europe/ The Middle Ages |
Amelia, a young novice at the Abbey of Munster-Bilzen, catches the eye of King Charles who sends for her when his is trying to decide what to do about his favorite son who has led an uprising against him. He likes her solution and begins to fall in love with her but is still married to his third wife. Amelia’s great ambition is to become the abbess at Munster-Bilzen but Charles has already promised the abbey to one of his daughters. While Charles is away fighting the Saxons, Amelia is sent to the small town of Temsche which has no church or priest to build a church and there she lives with a Jewish family. This imagined tale of St. Amalberga who it is claimed refused to marry Charlemagne and is attributed with founding the church in Temsche features some romance and details cloistered life in the late 8th century.
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Teen Speculative Fiction |
JD, Jane Doe, wakes up in a hospital after an explosion with no memory of even who she is. When she physically recovers she is sent to a large group home where she becomes with Daniel another outcast. Her face is splashed all over the news and a woman claiming JD is her daughter named Alexa. Something just doesn’t seem right, especially after her mother starts taking her to a psychiatrist who seems hauntingly familiar. Bedeviled by nightmares and strange waking dreams, JD contacts Daniel and finds nothing is as it seems.
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Teen/ Science Fiction/ Psionic Talents
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Trash’s telekinetic powers bring him to the attention of someone very powerful who kidnaps him and keeps him drugged while his family and pals from Edgeview Alternative School think he is dead. If that wasn’t bad enough the bad guy has also created a machine that negates the powers of Trash, Cheater, Lucky, Flinch, Torchie, and Martin. When Trash escapes, all the gang is mysteriously drawn together again. This thriller, a stand alone sequel to Hidden Talents will entice both avid readers and reluctant readers with its fast paced action and clever humor.
It is already a big hit with reluctant readers. Read what teens have to say about it here.
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Crime/ Suspense Thrillers
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In the fourth novel to feature US. Deputy Marshal Tim Rackley, he is sent to find Walker Jameson, a highly trained war veteran who has escaped from the Terminal Island Penitentiary. Tim sees the similarities between them and wants to know why this model prisoner would suddenly kill the leader of the Aryan Brotherhood in the prison and escape with an end to his imprisonment in sight. As Tim investigates he finds that Jameson’s sister, the mother of a terminally ill son had committed suicide but things just don’t add up. Rackley is a smart, savvy character who is married to a former cop and is the father of a wild toddler. He has respect for Jameson. This fast paced thriller with its intricate twists and turns keeps the reader going right to the very last page.
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Crime/ Mystery & Detective Stories/ Amateur Detectives
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Faye and Joe are in Mississippi for a dig necessary for highway improvements when she becomes fascinated by a mound on a neighboring property owned by a very hostile racist who ends up dead. because of the racial tensions in the area suspicion falls on Joe. The archeological details are fascinating and the characters are realistic and multidimensional.
Teen/ Issues
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Trying to be invisible, believing she is ugly white trash, Christy has a world of problems on her shoulders. Her favorite escape is hanging out on a bridge over the highway where she imagines where she would go if she were to follow the tail lights of a vehicle. Her daddy who died when Christy was eight-years-old told her that is what he would do when he was lost driving his truck. Living in a dying part of Flint, Michigan, a decaying city, she keeps house for her mom who works two jobs and drinks too much, her evil older drug-dealing brother Ryan, her brother Mitchell who is only a year younger and shared the same father, and the light of her life, her niece Bree, the daughter of her stone cold killer brother Robert who is doing life in prison. Flashing back to her past the way she acquired her best friend Anne, a rich doctor’s daughter and the friendship of a teacher who turned her on to some very good reads the reader can feel and understand what Christy feels. Deft characterizations including that of Flint, a city that plays a role as important as a character and Terrell a boy she works with in the library who wants to make a difference add to the appeal of this hard-hitting truthful novel. Jones is definitely a rising star in YA literature telling a grittily realistic tale that needs to be told while opening the door for Christy and readers who identify with her to be triumphant in life.
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Fantasy/ Fairy Tales
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The latest delightful fairy tale parody by John Moore starts with Sir Terry riding in to slay a dragon so he can win the hand of Princess Gloria. Unfortunately just after slaying the beast he discovers that he has crossed into another kingdom where the princess is no one he would want to marry. Slinking home after pinning the kill on his squire, he discovers that his true love has now been pledged in an arranged marriage to Roland Westfield, the scion of a family made rich in the sliced bread business. Because Gloria wants to marry Terry, she stages a kidnapping so he can rescue her but Roland, feeling responsible for his unmet fiancee takes off to find her and Sir Terry must go along to because, after all, they are headed in the same direction. Wonderful word play, enjoyable characters, and a page turning story all contribute to making this the feel good book of the year.
Teen/ Teen Contemporary Life/Coming of Age
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Katy’s mom, a university student is off to Peru on an archeological dig and unfortunately Katy isn’t invited. Instead she must leave all her friends in Montreal and go spend two weeks with her father, The Rat from the late great but never financially successful punk band Suck in LA. Katy hadn’t seen her dad since she was seven and he was banned from Canada forever for smuggling heroin. Now he’s off drugs and Suck is getting ready to go back on tour. One of the really disgusting things the Rat has done is to hire Lake Suck the daughter of Suck’s lead singer to act as Katy’s friend for her visit. Lake dubs Katy Beige. This is a funny, sweet, and painful tale of a fourteen-year-old beginning to see what life is all about. It is interesting to see a conservative outsider thrust into the punk community. Every punk song you ever heard will start running through your head. It helps that the chapter titles work as a playlist using titles and artists.
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Teen Speculative Fiction/ Science Fiction/ Action-Adventure / Science-Fantasy
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The planet New Earth was settled by those fleeing the violence of Earth. The only unforgivable crime is violence. Striking another is grounds for lifelong banishment. The world is ruled by the virtual reality game Epic where fights are staged and fortunes are won or lost. One’s accomplishments in Epic result in one’s job, standard of living, and even in the affluence of the community. The people in charge are the Central Allocations committee that decides who gets a needed solar panel or which community receives a much needed new tractor based on how players are doing in the game. The test for graduating from school and the defining factor of who makes it into university is decided by a huge Epic tournament. Eric’s persona in the game keeps getting killed so he decides to create a new one extremely different than himself or the persona he has always used. He creates Cindella, a swashbuckler, and uses all his game credits to buy her so much beauty that in the game she is not a nondescript gray shape like the other players but has a three dimensional finely nuanced appearance. Eric’s father never plays Epic even though the whole family wants him to but when he does the results are dire because it is found out that he has escaped banishment and is sent to a prison island. Eric, knowing the only way to free his father is to obtain freedom for all imprisoned there, sets out to slay a dragon, a task that has only been done once before in the history of Epic and those players now serve on Central Allocations. Teamed up with his neighbors and after exhaustive research, utilizing his local library and librarian, they do triumph but it is only the first step in a danger fraught path to freedom for their world as they go up against a ruthless executioner.
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Teen Contemporary Life/Coming of Age
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Arnold Spirit, Junior goes ballistic on the first day of high school when he realizes that his school on the reservation is so poor that his geometry book is the exact same one as his mother used when she was in high school. In his fury he throws the book and it hits the teacher in the face breaking his nose which gets Junior suspended for a week. When the teacher visits him and apologizes for how he treated Indian kids early in his career he encourages Junior to go to school off the Rez in a town twenty-two miles away where he can change his life. Junior is a funny-looking kid. He was born with “water on the brain” and when his teeth came in he had 10 extra ones. He also wears big ugly glasses which are the only ones issued by Indian Health Service. At Reardon High School Junior, who is called Arnold by the whites, is the only Indian. What he knows are Reservation rules which include lots of fighting so when a big senior varsity football player insults him, Junior attacks him and from then on is treated with respect. Penelope, a gorgeous blond freshman becomes his kind-of girlfriend and his dogged determination earns the freshman Junior a spot on the varsity basketball team. Junior is a very endearing narrator and his diary feels true from the love he has for his family and his lifelong best friend now enemy, Rowdy, to the grief alcohol causes in his life in a very personal way. I love Junior’s lists including his nine favorite books of which I’ve read eight and share some of the same favorites. His depiction of poverty is true, true, true as are the portraits of his friends and family members. The illustrations by Ellen Forney are a perfect complement to the text.
| Teen Fantasy/ World of Faerie / Myth & Legend The New Policeman Thompson, Kate Greenwillow 0-06-117427-0 2007 |
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J.J. Liddy, a fifteen-year-old Irish musician, wants to give his mother what she wants for her birthday but isn’t sure what to do when she expresses the need for more time. It seems that time is in short supply all around. When an eccentric neighbor guides him to a place he hasn’t been before he finds his way into Tir na n’Og, the land of faerie which is experiencing its own problems involving time. In a country littered with stray socks (now we know where those single socks that disappear in the wash end up), J.J. discovers the residents of this land have music that is new to him. Each chapter is accompanied by music. This rollicking fantasy blends mystery, legend, and delightful characters with sly humor as J.J. tries to find the time leak that is wreaking havoc in both worlds.
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Teen Speculative Fiction/ Science Fiction/ Action-Adventure
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Thirteen-year-old Stewart Hale just has to get into the Space Academy. It is what he wants more than anything in the world but his dad hasn’t signed the permissions slip for him to go to the camp that will make it all possible. In fact his father has gone off to the moon on business and his older brother has called the counselor when Stewart has a nightmare so Stewart must again relive the horrible crash that took the life of his mother a space pilot. Stewart is obsessed with going into space. He has watched all the Val Thorsten vids hundreds of times and spends as much time as he can in space simulators but somehow he has a block when it comes to astro navigation. Distressed by a blow up with the counselor he goes to the old space port where he meets a drunken old spacer who is delighted with Stewart’s short stature. When he returns the spacer grabs him and they leave the earth headed to the moon in a derelict craft. On the perilous journey Stewart discovers things about himself, the spacer, his hero, and his family in an action packed adventure. Entertaining space adventure with a strong flavor of the Heinlein juveniles.
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Teen Science Fiction/ Action-Adventure / Psionic Powers |
On Mystery Day, the ten year anniversary of the day all the superhumans disappeared in a battle, thirteen-year-old Danny Cooper saves the life of a little girl about to be struck by a bus, but in order to do it he had to have moved at super speed. He confides in his best friend Colin Wagner who soon discovers that he himself has acquired the ability of super hearing and super strength but that doesn’t save him when he and his parents are abducted. It turns out that on that fateful day super heroes and super villains alike lost their super powers and began living mundane lives. Escaping their captors in Jacksonville, Florida, Colin has amazing adventures on his way to find former superhero Solomon Cord. Meanwhile Renate, aka Diamond, a teenaged girl who can turn solid and impervious to damage has woken from a ten year sleep. Fans of superhero comics and movies will be thrilled with this fast paced story.
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Teen/ Issues/ Homelessness and Foster Living
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When Ted O’Connor’s pet store owning parents died in a car wreck he ended up in foster care. Life at home hadn’t been great, kids at his old school made fun of him and said he smelled like cat litter, his mom loved her numerous cats seemingly more than him. His only friends were animals who would communicate with him but after he moves into the Rafter’s foster home he becomes friends with C.W. an African-American kid who moved in the same day as he did and Astin, a kid who is close to aging out of the system. Astin’s girlfriend Megan introduces him to Wanda who is also an orphan in her own way. Gradually Ted comes into his own. The Rafters aren’t very sympathetic characters but they do provide “three hots and a cot” in this coming of age tale tinged with magical realism.
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