Book Review: Stealing Bradford

Title Stealing Bradford (Carter House Girls Book #2)
Author Melody Carlson
Genre YA, Commercial Fiction
Rating D

Summary The Carter House Girls go back to school, further fleshing out who are the smart ones, the athletic ones, the artsy ones, the pretty ones, etc., and continue their boy-related drama. Things get "crazy" when Taylor (the "pretty" and "athletic" and "smart" one) flirts with Bradford, the boyfriend of Rhiannon (the "artsy," "funky," "well-adjusted," "Christian"), and the rest of the house turns against her.

First Line "'I'm sorry, but my car's just not big enough for all the girls,' announced Eliza as they were finishing breakfast."

Review ...And cue the drama. Who will ride in what car? (Because we all know from Carter House Girls Book #1 that we are all supposed to hate Casey, the "troubled" "Goth chick" with safety pin piercings).

Believe it or not, I hated this book actually worse than I hated book number one, Mixed Bags. I didn't think it could get worse, but it did. DJ (the "athletic" "girl-next-door" protagonist), who I kind of liked in Mixed Bags, was schizophrenic in this book--first she can't stand this person, then she can't stand that person; first she's embarrassed by this boy, then she's mad at him, then she's "confused," but happy that he's her boyfriend. Check out some of this prose that occurs during a discussion at the lunch table about what kind of car D.J. should get:

[Conner, DJ's boyfriend, said:]"'Man, I hate to think of what Taylor might pick for you. Probably a Corvette or Mustang.'
'Why's that?'
'Well, my dad's always saying how those are the most dangerous cars on the road. More people get killed in them than any other car.' [Her boyfriend might actually be a girl... what guy would be anti-Corvette or Mustang?]
DJ nodded. 'Okay, definitely no Corvettes or Mustangs.'
'I'm pretty sure that goes for Firebirds and Camaros too.'
...Soon everyone at the table was giving their two cents' worth of car information to her, and by the time they exhausted the subject, she felt completely confused," (p. 131).

Really? Don't teenage girls just go to the lot and say, "Cool, that one's really shiny and I like the color. Let's get that."? I mean, personally, I took the '88 Ford Escort hatchback that my parents gave me and was grateful, but I think anybody that would get "confused" by advice about a car from her friends might not be the brighest bulb in the box.

How about this gem of introspection:

"DJ smiled to herself as she went into the auditorium. Having a boyfriend, although it took some getting used to, was kind of fun," (p. 133).

Kind of fun? Takes getting used to? What is this girl, Amish? Give me a break. She's got a cute guy that she's been friends with for as long as she's lived in town (and they had a serious make-out session in Book #1), but she's not used to him? What? I'd be all up on that (as would most any other 16-year-old girl, right?).

If you've been reading these reviews very long you know that all books start out as an A+ and then get docked a letter grade for everything that is bothersome--plot inconsistencies, down a point; over-characterization, down a point, etc. Well, Stealing Bradford was so bad it was nearly an F, but I made myself persevere and it earned two points (moving it up to a D).

Here are where the points came from:

1. Taylor became an interesting character. In order to not spoil the story, I won't tell you how, but Taylor actually becomes interesting, we get more of her back story, and I found myself wanting to hear more about her. Granted, Carlson's likely to screw the pooch in Book #3, but until I'm sure about that, the character of Taylor was worth something to me.

2. Carlson got into some heavier stuff. There were some plot points that I don't think you'd expect in a Christian-bubble-gum fest like the Carter House Girls, but we got them (finally) in the climax and leading into Book #3. As I said above, I hold out little hope that Carlson will follow through on the interesting set up, but I've got to give her a little credit.

Book Review: Evolution, Me, and Other Freaks of Nature

Title: Evolution, Me & Others Freaks of Nature
Author: Robin Brande
Genre: YA Fiction
Rating: D

Summary (from BN.com): "Your best friend hates you. The guy you liked hates you. Your entire group of friends hates you. All because you did the right thing. Welcome to life for Mena, whose year is starting off in the worst way possible. She's been kicked out of her church group and no one will talk to her—not even her own parents. No one except for Casey, her supersmart lab partner in science class, who's pretty funny for the most brilliant guy on earth. And when Ms. Shepherd begins the unit on evolution, school becomes more dramatic than Mena could ever imagine . . . and her own life is about to evolve in some amazing and unexpected ways."

Review: The review from Publisher's Weekly up on BN.com says that Mena is "an immediately likeable narrator"... I guess "likeable" is a relative term. I didn't like Mena, too much of a wet fish, like this book. This book tried to strattle the line--be all things to all people. Unfortuantely, they missed the mark. I was never sure who the target audience was for this. Most people who would have believed in evolution prior to coming to this book would probably have been put off by all of the religious references (and been reaffirmed in their thinking that the majority of Christians are a bunch of ignorant, hypocritical zealots), and Christians would be put off by Brande's mixing of intelligent design and evolution. There are a lot of people out there who believe that there is some hybrid between evolution and intelligent design, but not all and this book was written to come across as if you weren't able to see the connection, then you were in the "ignorant, hypocritical zealot" category.

I liked Casey, I liked his family, and I even kind of got were Mena's parents were coming from. However, I never liked Mena and I wasn't completely sold on Ms. Shepherd (probably because Brande was lazy and never made you really love Shepherd until way later in the book when Kayla talked about their relationship). Also, I find it kind of watery that Mena thought her parents wouldn't want her to date a boy (nevermind that the boy wasn't a Christian), just that she wasn't old enough. Also, how little did she think of her religious convictions (she makes some statement to the effect of dying before renouncing God), but she just seems to keep following whatever majority is most appealing to her at the time? Whatever.

That's why I gave the book such a low rating. It didn't earn an F because it brought up an intersesting topic for discussion, but it's handling of the material was lazy and lacked credibility. (In my opinion, but I've been known to be wrong before.)