I'm Challenging Myself

I usually abjure challenges because the arbitrary deadlines are like an albatross around my literary neck. However, the Printz Challenge has a revolving deadline, so I just have to (at some point in my life before the blog is shut down) read all of the Printz Winners (and honor books, if I choose).

I choose. I choose! Yeah, I totally choose!

Here's the link for any other YA geeks out there who want to participate in this free-spirited "challenge."

I'm Famous!

I'm not actually famous, but my blog has been included in the Book Blog Guild--a site to promote good book blogging (in all its many forms). Click on the link to read my profile and, while you're there, check out all the other totally amazing things going on there.

Book Review: The Astonishing Adventures of Fanboy and Goth Girl

Title The Astonishing Adventures of Fanboy and Goth Girl
Author Barry Lyga
Genre Young Adult, Literary/Commercial Fiction
Publication Date 2007
Rating A+

Summary Don (aka, Fanboy) is a high school sophomore who is having the crappiest of years--school stinks, home stinks, and a lack of friends stinks--but then he meets Kyra (aka, Goth Girl) and things start to change. She influnces him and is the first to see his secret, his graphic novel, and compels him to break out of his mold. Kyra has secrets though...

First Line "There are three things in this world that I want more than anything. I'll tell you the first two, but I'll never tell you the third."

Review The opening paragraph (above) was a really good starting place for this kick-butt story. Lyga takes the icons and ideas of Chabon's Pulitzer-winning Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay (which I, personally, believe is a modern re-interpretation of Don Quixote) and brings it down to a YA level. He uses the motif of comics and what they mean to fans, along with their culture, to illustrate some really important stuff about how teens belong, get along, etc.

Fanboy is heart-breakingly accurate. I loved him. I actually cried at parts. I laughed out loud at parts. I got excited at parts. For me this was one of the best books for teenagers that I've seen. I could really see this opening up some interesting discussions and debates.

Some of the bad reviews on GoodReads.com come from people who couldn't identify with the character because he doesn't fight back against the bullying and I say, "Really? You can't understand why a kid wouldn't do that?" Let me give you a taste of why Fanboy doesn't fight back when a kid repeatedly hits him during gym class:

"I can't [stop him]. He knows I can't. I'm a computer geek, a comic book geek, a study geek. Even in the Fast-Track classes, I'm apart... 'Just ignore them,' my mother used to tell me, when I was a kid, when I was younger, when the other kids would tease and make fun. 'Why do you care what they think? Just ignore them and they'll go away.' They didn't go away, though. She was wrong about that... What great advice: 'Ignore them.' So I did, even thought they didn't go away, and pretty soon there was nothing to say, nothing to do, because how are you supposed to suddenly stand up to them after years of silence and nothing?" (pp. 15-16).

"[His mom] pokes my right shoulder [where the kid has been repeatedly hitting him] and I want to scream, want to bellow in agony. 'What's that? What is it, Donnie?' I hiss in a breath through clenched teeth, my arm suddenly numb with fire where Mitchell Frampton pummeled it yesterday. 'What is this? What happened to you?' I look at what she's looking at, a massive bruise that discolors my arm from the point of the shoulder muscle up to the clavicle. At the center it's a deep purple that's almost black, lightening to a sickly jaundiced yellow at the edges. I don't know what to say. Or, actually, I know exactly what to say, and that's the problem. What happened to me, Mom? I followed your advice, that's what happened. I followed it for years and it's just that for once someone decided to go beyond name-calling and sniggering and flipping me off and sticking porn in my hands and the occasional shove or push, so someone finally left a mark that even you can't avoid seeing. But there's no point in saying that. I'm fifteen now. What would she do? Call the school? Call Frampton's parents? My word against his, and even if they believed me, so what? He gets suspended a few days and comes back worse than ever," (pp. 23-24).

That's the thing that got the most to me--how empty our advice, as adults, must seem to kids who are in tough situations. Ignore it and it'll go away? Why do we think that's good advice? Do we really think that some other juvenile kid won't love to pick on a weak and silent target? Is it because our kids who, honestly, are weaker would lose in a fight? It's because we know deep down that violence won't solve anything--even if your kid fights back and (miraculously) wins, well, you haven't won. That kid who was damaged enough to want to bully your kid in the first place is now damaged and looking to settle the score. Unfortunately, you've got a school full of hormone-riddled teenagers, none of whom has a fully-developed pre-frontal cortex, and they're going at each other like cannibals. The whole thing sucks, seriously, and Lyga takes a beautiful look at the whole thing.

By the way, after Kyra starts to influence Donnie, he does start to stand up for himself--not only to Frampton, but also to others who try and get him down.

On the topic of Kyra, there's not really a "clean" resolution at the end... Kyra's secrets remain a secret... and I think that's what made this book so awesome. You saw growth, change, you introspected, and all without it falling into a cookie-cutter. Very nice work from Lyga. I'll be putting him on my radar for future books (such as Goth Girl Rising which picks up Kyra's story six months later).

There, honestly, isn't anything that I'd change about this book. I loved it. The A+ probably should have been higher if I could, but I can't, so Lyga will just have to be pleased with perfection.

Book Review: Love Sick

Title Love Sick
Author Jake Coburn
Genre Young Adult, Literary Fiction
Rating A

Summary Two college freshman, Ted (lost his basketball scholarship after a drunk-driving accident and now frequenly attends AA meetings) and Erica (daughter of an incredibly wealthy man who suffers from bulemia--Erica does, not the dad) go to an Ivy League college and meet and fall in love. Unfortunately, Erica doesn't know that Ted's there on a scholarship from her dad and has been tasked with keeping tabs on food intake (and output).

First Line "John leaned forward and set his Styrofoam cup in between the front legs of his folding chair. 'John L., alcoholic.'"

Review I read this book in a single day and got super irritated any time that people made me do stupid stuff (like listen to a sermon at church) because it was taking time away from my chance to read. That's a pretty good frame of reference for this book.

So, here's the nitty-gritty. I liked these characters, all of them, a lot. Coburn did such a good job with getting their experiences and their reactions nailed down tight. Loved them. Loved the way he described them--the binge/purge scenes were fantastic (literarily-speaking).

The book does start off ever so slightly slow, but the set-up was necessary, I think. You had to know that Ted's life was slow; hence, he agreed to accept the assignment.

The ending was fantastic. At first I thought it would be one thing, but it wasn't and I was disappointed, but then it was another, some more disappointment, and then still more was coming. It was really good.

There's a prologue to the book and Coburn says that this is a fictionalized account of an actual story and the emails reproduced in the book were really sent. It's hard to believe that, but (if he's telling the truth) the story is actually just that much better.

In terms of who I'd recommend this to, pretty much anybody who loves a good angsty-character-driven YA novel. If you hate reading about teens/young adults and their lack of long-term perspective, then you'd probably be annoyed. (But you'd probably also be annoyed with this blog and aren't likely to read it.)

The Evolution of the Book Review

Not so very long ago Kelly over at the YAnnabe blog posted an article titled, “3 Ways to Get Me to Read Your Book Review.” She recommends: 1) Have a rating system; 2) Give a succinct summary at the beginning; and 3) Keep your review relatively short.

I’ve got #1 handled—note the literary grading scale. To date, the highest ever given was an A+ (some of which deserved an A++) and the lowest was a D+.

I’ve got #3 handled (most of the time). Sometimes I get a little wordy, especially when I’m trying to justify a low grade (because I feel bad doing that to a fellow writer and don’t want to just come off as a blow-hard loser, but as an intelligent reader with thoughts and meaningful opinions).

Where I’ve been falling short is #2. My summaries are usually from the back jacket or BarnesAndNoble.com, a couple of paragraphs, all of which is too long. I vow to change. Don’t believe me? Check out the review below for Inexcusable by Chris Lynch. I’ll prove that I can evolve.

Addition: I'm also going to start including the first line of the book... I think that can tell you a lot. (Check it out below and let me know what you think of how Lynch started out. Should I have been able to predict my eventual feelings?_

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: Angus, Thongs, and Full Frontal Snogging

Title: Angus, Thongs, and Full-Frontal Snogging
Author: Louise Rennison
Genre: YA, Commercial Fiction
Rating: B+

Abbreviated Summary (from GoodReads.com): "She has a precocious 3-year-old sister who tends to leave wet nappies at the foot of her bed, an insane cat who is prone to leg-shredding 'Call of the Wild' episodes, and embarrassing parents who make her want to escape to Stonehenge and dance with the Druids. No wonder 14-year-old Georgia Nicolson laments, 'Honestly, what is the point?'

"A Bridget Jones for the younger set, Georgia records the momentous events of her life--and they are all momentous--in her diary, which serves as a truly hilarious account of what it means to be a modern girl on the cusp of womanhood. No matter that her particular story takes place in England, the account of her experiences rings true across the ocean (and besides, "Georgia's Glossary" swiftly eradicates any language barriers)."

Review: I read this book in about two hours. It was quick, it was funny, it was British, and there was enough to get me to go back to the 1/2-Price Bookstore (where I picked up this book) and grab the next one in the series. Georgia is hilarious (and so are the mad-cap situations she gets herself into) and the "Sex God" seems interesting--the 14-year-old/18-year-old relationship should be a good, fun read.

This isn't a book that you're going to be writing any reports on, that's not Rennison's point, but it is one that will cause you to laugh out loud... which earns her a B+.