Book Review: The Heights

Title: The Heights
Author: Brian James
Genre: YA Literary Fiction
Rating: C

140-Character Summary: Wuthering Heights told as if Heathcliff and Cathy lived in San Francisco in an era where marrying your adopted sibling would be creepy.

First 140 Characters: "Always near the bay, I've felt like a fish. Pushed along through every day of my life the way fish are by the currents. Not caring much..."

140-Character Review: Making Bronte easier to understand is great (Henry was the best translation), but the shortening of the book left "a lot to be desired".

Hogwarts Challenge Notes: Muggle Studies

Book Review: The Cupcake Queen

Title: The Cupcake Queen
Author: Heather Hepler
Genre: YA Commercial Fiction
Rating: C

140-Character Summary: Penny moves from NYC (after parent's separation) to a small town. Mom opens a bakery and Penny goes to school. (And meets people and bakes.)

First 140 Characters: "The fact that I wasn't surprised when my mother handed me the sheet pan filled with pink frosted cupcakes is possibly more disturbing..."

140-Character Review: This book was pretty typical YA stuff (boys, mean girls, etc.), but the characters were diverse enough for me to want this to be a series.

Hogwarts Challenge Notes: Transfiguration
Lots of things change in this--perspectives, etc.

Book Review: Tips of Having a Gay (ex) Boyfriend

Title Tips on Having a Gay (ex)Boyfriend
Author Carrie Jones
Genre YA Commercial Fiction
Rating C

Summary Belle gets dumped by her (thought to be) soul mate Dylan because he's (shocker) gay. Actually, it did come as a shock to Belle, but not so much to a bunch of other people. The way that this revelation upsets the lives of so many in small-town Maine takes another 250 pages to digest.

First Line "We walk outside first."

Review My thoughts on this book could not possibly be more mixed. No siree. That would not be feasible.

On the plus side: I am so hard-core loving the relationship between Belle and her rebound guy (Tom) that I'm going to rush to the library tonight and get the second book in this little saga (Love (And Other Uses for Duct Tape). And I'll probably read it tonight. Other pluses are that I totally think that Dylan's angst is semi-believeable (in so much as I know what it's like to come out as a gay guy in a small town at the age of 17); I like a lot of the other supporting characters and the narrator doesn't completely get on my nerves. Several of her lists are well-balanced (whiny, depressed, etc., without being too whiny, depressed, etc.).

On the hugely negatively side: I cannot stand the author's writing. I read the back flap which says this lovely lady used to edit poetry magazines and it comes through in her writing (I think). And not in a good way. In a way that she tried to make this prose sound like poetry and was repetitive. I was over, over, over it. (Because she did that thing I just did where she uses the same word three times.) She does this over, over, over again in the book. It drove me batty!

Also, I was thoroughly annoyed that we got fantastic "remembrances" of romantic and/or hot scenes between Dylan and Belle and I can't get a second base with Tom? C'mon. That's why I'm reading the second book. I need to see if this girl can do her business with a straight guy. (Plus, have I ever mentioned that I have a very weird interest in reading books about sexually-confused young adults? Please do not speculate in the comments regarding what you think that may or may not mean about me.)

[Plus: I want to see if Jones can overcome her deep reliance upon gay stereotypes and really develop the characters. The (former) boyfriend likes Streisand and is in show choir. Enough said.]

Recommendation I'm holding off on this until after I've read the next book. Check back later for edits.

Book Review(s): Pretty Tough and Playing With the Boys

Title Pretty TOUGH
Author Liz Tigelaar
Genre YA Commercial Fiction
Rating D+

Summary Charlie and Krista Brown (yep, you read it right--Charlie Brown) are sisters who hate each other. Charlie isn't happy with her life; she's a high school sophomore who doesn't have any friends (her best friend spread a rumor about her freshman year), and she thinks Krista is full of herself. Krista is under intense pressure to stay with her uber-popular boyfriend who's already been accepted early admission to Yale, and her best friend (a D-list Hollywood actress) doesn't think that Krista is all that. When Charlie crashes Krista's senior season of soccer, they both learn something.

First Line "For nearly twenty seconds, Charlie was convinced she was dead."

Review Imagine reading a book where you don't particularly like reading the protagonist's POV. Now imagine that the book in question is told in alternating POV's between two sisters, and you don't like either of the voices. Charlie is whiny and Krista is a narcissist. Good times, right?

The story was moderately interesting and the ending, although a little bit obvious from a long ways off, was actually written pretty well. I finally saw why Charlie and Krista hated each other. Too bad it took me 200 pages to get to that point. The author didn't do a good job of fleshing out the sisters--you knew they hated each other, but you didn't know why. This book would have been infinitely better if the author had elaborated on the complexities of the sisters' relationship before page 174. She made me work way too hard to finish this book.

Also, just as a side note, doesn't the cover look like that girl is missing a foot? That might make it sort of hard to play soccer, right?

Title Playing With the Boys (A Pretty TOUGH Book)
Author Liz Tigelaar
Genre YA Commercial Fiction
Rating C

Summary Lucy Malone is transported from Toledo, OH, to Malibu, CA, with her dad after her mother dies. The loss of her mom and the cross-country move are tough to deal with, but she meets Charlie Brown (remember her?) and some other great girls when she tries out for the soccer team. Unfortunately, she doesn't make it, but she can really bend it and when the place kicker for the football team gets injured, Lucy gets goaded into going for the goal.

First Line "Lucy Malone had always felt that she was just one letter short of 'lucky,' and in her fifteen years on this planet, her theory had definitely been proven true."

Review Remember the problems with Pretty TOUGH? (You should. The review's right up above... go read it again if you've forgotten.) Well, Tigelaar cleaned up her act on this book.

Lucy is an instantly-likable narrator. Her problems are complex and you understand why and you care pretty much straight-away. The drama surrounding the boys/crushes/let's just be friends situations were much more compelling in this second book. The only hang-up for me was that the tension about Lucy's dad's prohibition of her being on the football team was too melodramatic. Everything else was pretty good (not high-brow literature, sure, but decent reading), but this just rang as not all that believable.

I almost didn't read this book (because Pretty TOUGH was so bad), but I'm glad I did. Tigelaar is definitely evolving as a writer and I'll be looking forward to future books in this series.

Recommendation People who like their YA literature with a little "girl power" thrown in.

Book Review: The Spring of Candy Apples

Title The Spring of Candy Apples, Sweet Seasons Series #4
Author Debbie Viguie
Genre YA Commercial Fiction
Rating C

Summary In the final book in the Sweet Seasons Series, Candace Thompson serves out her final season at The zone amusement park. Bringing a conclusion to her relationships, the ride-designing competition, and decisions about the future.

First Line "Candace wondered how every couple of months she managed to wind up seated across the desk from a Zone executive."

Review Read my review of the first three books in the series here.

This book was pretty much predictable if you've read the first three books in the series. There were a few twists (who Josh's parents were, what goes on with the evil Lisa), but most of the resolutions were seen from a mile away. All that being said, it was a quick, easy read that brought a nice resolution to all of the story lines.

Recommended Fans of Christian YA fiction who have read the first three books in the series.

Book Review: Guys Write for Guys Read

Title Guys Write for Guys Read
Author Jon Scieszka, Ed.
Genre Nonfiction (YA), Short Story Anthology
Rating C

Summary Sixty-eight authors and twenty-three illustrators, all male, contributed essays on various topics (most often how they developed a love of reading, but sometimes just what it's like to be a guy).

First Line "Hey guys--now here is something for you to read. A bunch of pieces by a bunch of guys... all about being a guy."

Review Some of these short stories were really funny and I'll remember them for a long time. Some were so good that I had to grab my fourteen-year-old nephew who has a love/hate relationship with reading (sometimes he's hot, sometimes he's not) and have him read it right then. Others were boring (or would have been boring to a young guy). It was a 50/50 split for me (hence the C rating).

Most poignant piece in my opinion was "Funny You Should Ask" from The Life of Reilly by Rick Reilly where the author gives his son a very long and philosohical answer to his question of, "Dad, why are we here?" only to later receive clarification from the son that, "No, what I meant is, why are we here when Mom said to pick her up forty minutes ago?"

Two Funniest Stories:
#1: A super-short story about a time when a class of fourth graders is assigned to write a short story about what they'd do if they were Robinson Crusoe and their teacher said, "...You can write anything you want." One kid chooses to write, "This is my story: One day I was on a ship and it crashed on an island. There was this monster and it ate me. The End." The kid ended up getting sent to the principal's office and got paddled. So much for writing anything you want. David Rice knocked out the full story arc in only six paragraphs in "The Death of a Writer."

#2: A story about a guy who, when he was younger, watched his nephew pee on an electric fence (with startling results) and then sees his son do the same thing when he's about 14 years old (with painful results). The son asks if he'll ever outgrow the phase of doing stuff like that and the dad responds, "It's the way we are." The story telling is humorous and sweet and comes from the award-winning author Gary Paulson (who's not known for his humor) in an excerpt from How Angel Peterson Got His Name.

The most memorable story was Chris Crutcher's essay on getting initiated (aka, hazed) into his high school's athletic fraternity. I had my nephew read this one and his question when he was done was, "Why'd they have to be naked?" Classic.

I think this book, and what the Guys Read organization does as a whole, is awesome. I'm not sure this is a book that I'd recommend for a lot of middle grade/young adult guys to sit down and read straight through like I did, but I could definitely see recommending selected stories to guys at different times to meet certain needs (like when my nephew was in his room, playing his guitar too loudly--he's teaching himself to play--and I had him read an essay I'd just finished reading, "E, A Minor, B7" by Bruce Brooks, about how every 8th grade boy is in a band. He read it, laughed, and kept strumming). I could see teachers integrating selected essays into their curriculum as nice adjuncts, but it's not necessarily a cover-to-cover anthology... take the foreward's advice:

"So look around in here for something you like. You don't have to read in any order. You don't have to like everything you read. You don't even have to read everything."

Book Review: Inexcusable

Title Inexcusable
Author Chris Lynch
Genre YA, Literary Fiction
Rating C

Summary Keir Safarian may or may not have done something untoward with Gigi, the girl that he loves, on the night of his graduation from high school. Keir finds out that he may or may not be the guy that he thought he was.

First Line "The way it looks is not the way it is."

Review So, here’s the deal: I can’t review this book. It’s so weird because this book was a National Book Award Finalist (2005), which always makes me think that there should be something that knocks my socks off, but I was just so very ambivalent about this whole book.

The writing is interesting in its way, Lynch nails the high school voice to a tee, the dialogue and prose drive you forward, the plot “twist,” wasn’t really a twist, but you were still surprised at the end. And yet, I’m… hmm… empty.

I think part of the problem with my reticence about this book is that I’m not in the target demographic. I know this book should be good, see my earlier comment about NBA Finalist (not basketball, you dummy), but I found very little in it that I could get excited about. Does that make it a bad book? No. Can I think of anything that Lynch should have changed to make it better? Not really.

It just wasn’t the book for me. I’d probably recommend this book to high school guys (who probably are as equally self-deluded as Keir was), but seeing as how I have little to no interaction with high school guys caught in the throws of self-delusion, I’m just stuck with a technically-good book that’s not meaningful.

But I can admit when I'm lacking, so if there's anybody else out there who had their socks knocked off by this or knows of somebody who's life was impacted, please drop a comment. I want to find a reason to like this book.

Book Review: Younger

Title: Younger
Author: Pamela Redmond Satran
Genre: Commercial Fiction
Rating: C

Abbreviated Summary (from the Back Flap): "Alice has always looked young for her age, even with her graying hair and her dowdy New Jersey housewife style. Make that ex-housewife: Now that her husband's gone and her daughter is grown, Alice is in desperate need of a while new life. So she lets her friend Maggie transform her... on New Year's Eve. Soon, thanks to the wonders of hair dye and tight jeans, Alice looks really young... At midnight, she kisses a boy who was in diapers when she was in high school.

"The white lie that Alice tells Josh gets her thinking that if no one asks her age, she doesn't have to tell. So she applies for a job... and gets it. Meanwhile, Josh is falling head over heels for Alice, who's just way cooler than girls his age..."

Review: There was way more to that summary about her telling her lies and will she get caught? Obviously. You know the climax going in. The only thing you don't know is, Why would I care? I picked this book up as an impulse buy at the store as I was browsing, I was hungry and the cake caught my eye, and I skimmed to the part about when she meets Josh (I thought the 44 year/25 year relationship was far-fetched) and wanted to see how it was written. Not well, but Josh was a nice character, so I picked it up. Josh is what kept me reading. I found I skimmed a lot of the rest of it (Are those the worst words an author can hear?), I didn't care about her daughter, kind of liked her friend (although I knew the outcome of all her baby-wanting before it even happened).

It was really formulaic and Alice was fine, but the pitch was just so-so for me. Maybe I wasn't in the target demographic. Being 30, I'm too old for the stuff about partying younger people, and too young for the stuff about the older generation. Maybe other people might like it, it just wasn't for me. (Plus, the oft-repeated references to how women in their 40's are at their sexual peak seemed like over-compensating to me.)

There was an interview with the author at the back of the version I bought that I read part of, and she said she'd been kicking the idea for this book around in several different forms. One of which was, "I saw Alice as a rich shallow woman on the brink of killing herself who decides to spend her last hour of life reading Vogue--and therin discovers a miracle-working plastic surgeon whom she gets to transform her into someone who looks young." Sure, it's surreal, but it actually sounds more innovative than this story was.

I've read worse, but I've read better... that gets you a C.

Book Review: Mixed Bags

Title: Carter House Girls Series Book #1, Mixed Bags
Author: Melody Carlson
Genre: YA Fiction, Christian
Rating: C

Abbreviated Summary (from the Back Flap): When her mom died, DJ had to move in with her grandmother... Now Mrs. Carter's opened a boarding home for young ladies, and DJ--who would rather wear her basketball team uniform than haute couture--is just sure they'll be unbearable fashion snobs. One by one, the girls arrive and begin to figure out how to fit into this new family, getting to know each other and forming friendships. There's a few aspiring divas and even a closet Christian. Before long, the Carter House girls are dating, fighting, laughing, shopping, sharing clothes, purses, shoes... and their deepest secrets. DJ may not turn into the perfect little lady her grandmother has in mind, but one thing's for certain--with all these new "sisters," her life will never be the same!

Review: Apparently, when it comes to Christian YA fiction, it's a toss-up. You either get good writing and a some-what interesting storyline (see the Sweet Seasons novels) or you get a book that's not too preachy-preachy (like this series), but you can't have your cake and eat it too. What's unfortunate, in my opinion, is that Melody Carlson is a prolific writer--she's got literally tons of books in the Christian fiction genre. What does that say about tastes?

Some of the characters in these books are interesting--mostly the guy that DJ gets a crush/quasi-romance with, and the cliff-hanger at the end of the book is probably enough to keep me reading these books. (I've bought the next three in the series, there will be eight in total.) Don't really read too much into that, I need something to read while I'm on the theoretical toilet. It's something you can read while you're watching TV or riding the stationary bike... not too many brain cells required.

I gave it a C because Carlson sells so many books some people must like them, just not me.

Book Review: Blue Bloods

Title: Blue Bloods
Author: Melissa De La Cruz
Genre: Young Adult, Science Fiction, Urban Paranormal Series
Rating: C

Abbreviated Book Summary (from flap): Within New York City's most elite families, there lurks a secret society of celebrated Americans whose ancestors sailed on the Mayflower. Its members are the powerful and the wealthy--and, in fact, they are not human. They are the Blue Bloods, and ancient group of vampires... Schuyler [Van Alen] wants to find out the secrets the Blue Bloods are keeping. But is she herself in danger?

Review: De La Cruz does a good job of blending traditional vampire lore with new concepts of their purpose and reincarnations, hoping to achieve forgiveness for their pride that got them banished from heaven. The re-inventing of vampire lore helps to keep the genre fresh (which is nearly a necessity these days with the scads of vampire series that are being cranked out for young adults).

Additionally, all the characters in this series have at least one redeeming quality--even the charicatured snob of the elite school, Mimi Force, is seen toward the last two-thirds of the book as a strong character driven by purpose and duty to the Blue Bloods.

What isn't done well in this series is the writing (an unfortunate scenario for books, I'd dare say). Rather than fleshing out a scene or a character, De La Cruz drops names of labels in a Devil Wears Prada knock-off style. What's so bothersome about this, despite the fact that it dates the book and seals its fate as a flash-in-the-pan phenomenon, is that the characters reference several times that it's a big faux pas to be a slave to labels. They spend tons of money to look like they spend no money, so it would seem out of character that the labels would take such a front and center stage in the prose, but they do. Additionally, the amount of smoking and underage drinking, which are completely unnecessary, is ridiculous (again, seems to be trying to do a little rip-off of another successful series, perhaps Gossip Girl?).

This book earned the C rating... for every redeeming quality, it's got a label to knock it back to the average. A recommendation for readers who like teen vampire fiction that are trying to tide themselves over until another book in a better series is released (i.e., The Mortal Instruments).