Book Review: The Book of Luke

Title: The Book of Luke
Author: Jenny O'Connell
Genre: YA Commercial Fiction
Rating: C-

140-Character Summary: Nice girl Emily Abbott is going to try, with the help of her friends, to not be so nice any more. And not-nice-guy, Luke, is her guinea pig.

First 140 Characters: "My parents waited in the cab with TJ while Sean and I stood together on our front walk. It was the same front walk where we'd shared..."

14(1)-Character Review: Nothing ground-breaking with the plot or character development--pretty standard YA stuff--but not a bad read per se. Just an okay, NICE book.

[Sorry, I couldn't get it down to 140 exactly.]

Hogwarts Challenge Notes: Charms... Emily goes from nice to mean (and Luke does some changing), but then she realizes her understanding of nice and mean were what needed changing.

Book Review: First Kiss (Then Tell)

Title: Fist Kiss (Then Tell): A Collection of True Lip-Locked Moments
Editor: Cylin Busby
Genre: Non-fiction, Young Adult
Rating: C-

Summary: A collection of relatively well known YA authors share true stories of first kisses in various forms and with various outcomes.

First Line: "'He likes you,' my friend Missy whispered to me as we sat on the curb, watching our guy friends skateboard down a concrete ramp."

Review: This is your typical short story collection. Some good, some bad, some redundant.

My favorites were:

• "Bad Reputation," by Cecil Castellucci (with implications regarding the influence of friends on the kissing dynamics);


• "Yeah, I Know," by Jon Scieszka (a down-to-earth guy's perspective that tells it like it is... smelling rubberbands?); and


• The she said/he said, "Our First Kiss (with each other)" by Shannon and Dean Hale.

There were two other stories, but (because they were so similiar), they cancelled each other out. Both "Pashin' or The Worst Kiss Ever" (by Justine Larbalestier) and "Lips, Tongues, and Dr. Pepper" (by Lauren Myracle) were cute to read (because they were so cringe-inducing), but they had the same theme. And, unfortunately for Myracle, Lauren's came later and seemed unnecessary. This showed that the book could have used tighter editing. Larbalestier (who is a really good author) didn't even write regarding her own first kiss--it was a friend's--so Busby should have worked to get something original and different (to give Myracle's room to breathe).

A good number of the other contributions were of the same theme: if you haven't kissed someone by 15, then you're destined to be a spinster. Therefore, do everything in your power to get that kiss under your belt. Not the best message in the world to be sending. Over and over again.

I did appreciate that they mixed it up with graphic contributions ("The Third First Kiss" by Amy Kim Ganter was my favorite of this group) and some in verse.

Book Review: Ninth Grade Slays

Title Ninth Grade Slays (The Chronicles of Vladimir Tod Series, Book #2)
Author Heather Brewer
Genre YA Science Fiction
Rating C-

Summary (Read my review of Book #1, Eighth Grade Bites.) Vlad, teenage half-vampire, is now in high school and he's learning all sorts of new things: quadratic equations, how to kiss a girl, how to read and control other people's minds, how to evade vampire slayers, and what it means to be a Pravus.

First Line "Jasik gripped the photograph in his hand and scanned the face of the boy. Except for his pale complexion and clever eyes, no one would suspect the teen was anything other than human. But Jasik knew differently."

Review Many of my comments in the review of Eighth Grade Bites are also applicable in Ninth Grade Slays. The characters are still fun to read (although their sense of humor with making vampire-related puns isn't that witty), they're getting further fleshed out, the plotting (weaving together the mundane and the mythological) kept my interest, and the writing was stiff and kind of boring.

Actually, the low-quality of the writing got to be so irritating to me that I started underlining and writing "What?" comments in the margin. Examples:

"Vlad tucked the letter inside his pocket and, reaching into the freezer for a bag of A negative, allowed himself a smile," (p. 75).

Really? He had to allow himelf to smile? Vlad isn't a particularly negative or mean kid. He smiles and laughs quite often. Plus, in this particular scene, he'd just received a letter from his uncle--something he looks forward to. Why is the smile allowed? Bad verb choice, I think.

"...Quite a few [of the books] had been banned in both the school and the town library. Vlad couldn't understand the logic behind banning books. Tell kids they can't do something and then be surprised that your efforts drove them to do whatever you didn't want them to do? Some grown-ups could be so inherently stupid," (pp. 79-80).

Really? Does anybody else find this tangent on book banning to be a little heavy-handed? Also, did anybody else notice that she slipped in the modifier "inherently" in front of the stupidity of book-banning adults? (Note: I do not support book banning or challenging. I also don't support condescending name-calling.)

Some of her writing is kind of clever, though. Example:

"Most were older, classic novels--like Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, which had seriously freaked Vlad out as a kid and still did. Who wouldn't be scared by the tale of a girl falling into a bizarre world infested with talking animals and a queen with a thirst for blood?" (p. 79).

Nice irony.

But here's my biggest issue with this series: this plot feels like a rip-off/re-working of Harry Potter. Orphan with a big prophecy about his future who's parents' old friends help to raise and teach him and gets relentlessly pursued by others of his own "kind" who have turned evil. And what I find most befuddling about the whole thing is that the HP series was intended as Middle Grade fiction, but was written with a prose that appealed to even adults, but this Vladimir Tod series is YA/Teen fiction, but reads like Middle Grade.

I guess the up-side for Brewer is that I liked HP enough that the overall story-line of destiny, magic, and good v. evil will still keep me reading her series. (But I'll probably check them out of the library--sorry, no money in her pocket.)

Recommended Fans of the Harry Potter series who are looking for a derivative series.

Book Review: Generation Dead

Title Generation Dead (Book #1 in the Generation Dead Series)
Author Daniel Waters
Genre YA Science Fiction
Category Paranormal Romance
Rating C-

Summary Teens all over the United States are waking up from the dead as zombies, but not as the eat-your-brain-type zombies, more along the lines of we-talk-and-walk-slow-but-we-can-go-to-school-with-you-type zombies. Phobe (a not-zombie goth) starts to develop a deep relationship with undead student Tommy Williams, which draws the ire of fellow "blood bag" students who don't support zombie rights.

First Line "Phoebe and her friends held their breath as the dead girl in the plaid skirt walked past their table in the lunchroom."

Review Let me just put it out there, the reason I bought this book was because the back flap contained an excerpt from the Kirkus starred review that stated, "Stephenie Meyer meets John Green in debut author Waters's wry, original supernatural romance..." That got me to pick up the book because 1) I tend to like John Green's writing (more often than not); and 2) I am on the lookout for paranormal romance that isn't campy Twilight-y stuff and I wanted to see if this met that criteria (I put stock in the fact that this involved zombies and was written by a guy as indicators that it might not be too purple). I read the opening pages, which were okay, and I decided to take the $9 plunge to buy this book in paperback.

Unfortunately, for me, this book fell short of my John Green and anti-Twilight expectations. There were good things about the book (more on that later), but most of it wasn't that great. First off, Waters's writing was stilted and pretty boring. There wasn't any gripping action or moving poetry in his stylings that kept you glued to the page. This was Waters's first novel, so I'm going to hold out and hope that things improve as time goes along.

Second off, the paranormal romance was cut out of a tired mold. Tommy Williams had a hard, cold body, he was a gentleman, and he's undead. Sounds like another character in the long-line of mythical boyfriends that are making the rounds in YA paranormal romance these days (and let's be honest, adult paranormal romance is pretty much the same stuff). The one original thing about Tommy comes out in pages 380-381 where you discover that there are underlying motivations behind Tommy's "feelings" for Phoebe that were complex and interesting. Unfortunately, other events halt Tommy and Phoebe's conversation, so those issues aren't resolved, but I'm sure this will come up later in the series (fingers crossed that we'll get to revisit Tommy's motivations and see if he's as "pure" as he was made out to be).

Now for the good stuff...

First, as said before, there is the potential for some interesting developments in the character of Tommy. Is he all good or does he have some selfishness underneath that hard, cold exterior? There's also some interesting opportunities for narration from Adam (Phoebe's all-American nextdoor neighbor who takes a bullet for her and comes back as a zombie). The first couple of chapters of Book #2 in the series were in the back of this book, and the chapter from Adam's POV is interesting to read--the zombie mindset is a unique "voice" to read.

Also, there are other issues being examined in this book besides just "paranormal romance." Waters is using zombies as a metaphor for something else... he mentions the rights of illegal aliens, but could it also be same-sex marriage or some other hot-button political issue? I think so. I also think that presenting the idea of equal rights inside this "zombie book" was a something I hadn't seen done before. Kudos to him.

In summary, this book was not a very good read, but there was just enough potential for development for me to commit to reading the next book in the series, Kiss of Life. (I'll just wait until it's in paperback.)

Recommendation People who are looking for an extension of their paranormal romance fetish will like this. Tommy's no Edward Cullen, but who knows? Maybe Adam will turn out to be Phoebe's knight-in-rotting-flesh.

Book Review: The Black Rood

Title The Black Rood (Book #2 of the Celtic Crusades Series)
Author Stephen R. Lawhead
Genre Science Fiction
Category Historical Fantasy
Rating C-

Summary Duncan, Son of Murdo, takes up his own pilgrimage to the Holy Land to recapture the Black Rood (a holy relic that is purportedly a piece of Christ's cross). In the process we find that this journey in the 1100's is related to some work being done by an underground organization in the 1900's, but that connection remains hazy.

First Line "The summons came while I was sitting at my desk."

Review This book is just another example of Stephen Lawhead doing the things that he does well, well (and continuing to do the things he does poorly, poorly). Read my review of Book #1 in this series.

In comparison to Book #1 in this series, I think The Black Rood built off that set-up and provided additional interesting glimpses into life in the Middle East in the 12th Century. Lawhead does active description really well (I have the mental imagery of a pig torture scene in my mind and it's probably going to haunt me for some time) and scenes are very well drawn. I also enjoyed that there was the added complexity that Duncan spent a great deal of time in this narrative in captivity, much of the book takes the form of a letter recounting his experiences. This further fleshed out Lawhead's interesting take on the cagey nature of monarchs and various rulers.

What I didn't like was the loose threads at the end of this book. There are relationships severed and relationships forged, but you don't see any of that resolved. Book #3 takes up the story of Duncan's daughter (which should tie some of these dangling pieces together), but it was all felt too unfinished at the end of this book.

Recommendation Fans of religious conspiracies (a la, Dan Brown) would probably enjoy this book.

Book Review: In Your Room

Title In Your Room
Author Jordanna Fraiberg
Genre YA Commercial Fiction
Rating C-

Summary The families of Molly Hill and Charlie Richards do a house swap, and what starts as a few preliminary emails to discuss caring for a cat in the area, turns into a relationship where two people who seem like they're wildly different find out that they're really the same.

First Line "Dear Molly: My name is Charlie and I'm staying in your house for the summer. More precisely, I'm staying in your room."

Review This was a cute storyline--not something I had seen before in a book (it's been done in movies before)--with fun characters who were interesting and kind of quirky.

I rated this story so low because the writing was just... meh. The dialogue didn't sound like teenager dialogue. She used third person narration and alternating POV's, but some of the description was... hokey. When Mollie is experiencing an amazing natural high from biking around, the descriptions of it weren't that compelling. I wanted to care about this relationship, but the writing was kind of weak.

On the flip side, during the climax, when Charlie is confused and missing something (I'm trying to avoid a spoiler), I felt a lump in my throat. That part was good (and redeeming for her literary grade).

Recommendation People who enjoy stories about long distance relationships and/or love stories between people who come from different worlds.

Book Review: Pants on Fire

Title Pants on Fire (formerly Tommy Sullivan is a Freak)
Author Meg Cabot
Genre YA Commercial Fiction
Rating C-

Summary Katie Ellison is a liar (or so she says 9,000,000 times in the book). Her lies include cheating on her uber-cool boyfriend (but they're just kissing, so is that really cheating?) and covering up the fact that she ruined the life of her best friend, Tommy Sullivan, in eighth grade. Now Tommy's back in town and things are about to get interesting.

First Line "'Oh my God, what's she doing here?' my best friend, Sidney van der Hoff, was asking, as I came up to the corner booth to hand out menus."

Review This book was my first foray into the wet and wild world of Meg Cabot books and I enjoyed this light, fun summer read. Katie Ellison is a relatively self-aware 17-year-old girl who thinks about people and things for herself, rather than always just going along with the crowd. Not a bad character. Unfortunately, Meg Cabot might be a little too good at getting in the mind of teenage girls because Katie got on my nerves after a while. If she said that she was a liar one time, she said it a thousand times. Because that's what teenage girls do. They obsess. About themselves. Like the rest of us care about them as much as they care about themselves. She did the repetitive inner monologue about the lying, about the cheating (and the wondering if kissing someone else is technically cheating), about being boy-crazy, and about being crazy about particular boys. It got a little old. If Katie hadn't been such a good character otherwise, I think I might have given up on this gimmick.

But I didn't. I stuck around to the end which, although I saw it coming from a mile (aka, 235 pages) away, I enjoyed. Things wrap up tidily enough (of course) and the characters pretty much redeem themselves (of course). My only issue with the ending (much like I had an issue with the ending of Megan Meade's Guide to the McGowan Boys) is that things wrap up tidily without us knowing how they tidied up. Katie gets in some heat from her parents, but they also support her, but we don't ever really see any of that--just a sentence or two about that. We get a good resolution between the primary/seriously main characters, but there were some pretty critical secondary characters that just disappeared and I would have liked for them to have stuck around.

Recommendation Fans of books about deep secrets getting revealed (in a not too heavy or depressing way) like Fake Boyfriend by Kate Brian, Two Way Street by Lauren Bernholdt, or Plan B by Jenny O'Connell would probably enjoy this book.

Book Review: Perfect You

Title Perfect You
Author Elizabeth Scott
Genre YA Commercial Fiction
Rating C-

Summary Kate Brown's life is falling apart: her (formerly chubby) best friend did a transformation over the summer and became popular (too popular to even acknowledge that Kate exists), and her dad quit his job to sell "Pefect You" vitamins at a kiosk in the mall (and makes Kate work with him). Things just get worse from there... except that Will (cute, good with the ladies) might be interested in her now. Really? She can't believe it.

First Line "Vitamins had ruined my life."

Review I had a hard time putting this book down because the end of every chapter was a "cliff-hanger" of sorts and the character of Will was completely engaging. I fell in love with him.

I didn't fall in love with Kate. The primary reason being that her best friend treats her like trash and, instead of forgetting about her and moving on, she keeps hoping that her friend will come back. Her friend actually ignores her, lies to her, stands her up, laughs at her, etc., with the popular girls. At no point did Kate get a back bone and tell her friend she was being a douche bag.

Nope, instead she assumes everyone is going to eventually leave her and ends up treating Will like a douche bag. It was all really annoying. Kate was weak and not altogether interesting. The book wraps up tidily enough, but I was left bored by the end--wanting more Will and less Kate.

After I finished reading, I read the first chapter of Scott's next book, Something Maybe, that was inserted as a tease into the back of this book. I then turned to my sister and said, "The smartest thing a publisher can do is give you the first chapter of the next book." As much as Perfect You was a totally forgettable book (honestly, I can't really remember the ending that well... hence why I wrote that it "wraps up tidily" without any specifics), I'll eventually buy Something Maybe.

Recommendation People who like teen romance stories (of the first love variety) with a seasoning of high school melodrama thrown in, will enjoy this quick so-so read.