Empty

I loved Susan Beth Pfeffer's Moon books and was on the lookout for more of that type - survival in the "new" world when things have gone wrong.  I came across Empty by Suzanne Weyn.  Empty tells the story of three kids in a small town and how they deal with life once the United States basically runs out of gasoline.  It alternates chapters that focus on the three characters:  Tom, Nikki, and Gwen.  Each kid is very different but they all end up in the same boat when the problems start getting bad.

Here's what I did like about the book:  it makes you think.  We are so very dependent on all kinds of products that involve oil.  The book does a good job of showing readers just how much would be affected by running out of oil and by continuing to make the choices that we are making in regards to oil use.

But I just didn't really care about these characters.  I felt like they were just there to say stuff about what kinds of choices we should have made to not be in this no-gas situation.  They were flat for me.  Plus, the book was just overly didactic, which I just didn't love.  I felt that w/ the moon books (Life As We Knew It, the dead and the gone, and This World We Live In), you learned about the consequences but you cared about the characters, too.  This book just seemed a little to overt in its message to make me care about it as a good work of fiction.  Also, some things were just "oh so perfect" for the people in this little town.  For example:

"Guess who we met on the way over here--Mr. Curtin!" Tom said.  "And listen to this:  His wife is an environmental engineer, and as soon as we have power again, she's going to start giving workshops to people in Sage Valley on alternative fuels and all sorts of stuff like solar and wind power.  She's written up a grant to try to make the town a model of energy self-sufficiency.  Is that cool, or what?" (p. 155)

See - it's just too perfect.  While the book will definitely make you think about what might happen if we really were to run out of oil - maybe the pessimist in me (and I'm usually not like this) thinks that the "happy-ish" ending just is too perfect.  I preferred the way the moon books ended or The Road's ending - if it's the end of the world - let's face it - it's probably not going to be that pretty.

Anna and the French Kiss

So  this book is really special to me because the author, Stephanie Perkins, is from my town!!  She's a local writer and we are so proud of this book.  Gayle Forman recommended this book on NPR as one of the best young adult reads of the year - check her list out here.  I couldn't agree more - this was a fun, french, flirty, fabulous read.

Anna is a senior in high school, but her senior year isn't going to be like she thought because her father really famous writer who...

"writes novels set in Small Town Georgia about folks with Good American Values who Fall in Love and then contract Life Threatening Diseases Die." (p. 5)

decides to send Anna to American boarding school in Paris for her senior year.  Don't get it wrong - Paris for a year is an amazing opportunity - but Anna is a bit bummed about leaving her best friend, her job, and the cute boy at her job for a country she knows nothing about - I mean, she took Spanish in high school; she doesn't even know a word of French.

But once she's at school, she makes friends, settles in, and meets the gorgeous Etienne St. Clair.  He's, simply put, just perfect - except that he has a girlfriend.  Anna and St. Clair become friends, have these special moments where she thinks it could be more, and then...it seems to slip away.  But they seem to have this wonderful connection.  One of my favorite passages is about when the gang is all out at the movies.  Anna is sitting next to St. Clair.  She loves movies, but her proximity to this beautiful boy is making it hard to concentrate on the film:

"The characters on the screen are squabbling, but for the life of me, I don't know what about.   How long have I not been paying attention?

St. Clair coughs and shifts again.  His leg brushes against mine.  It stays there.  I'm paralyzed.  I should movie it; it feels too unnatural.  How can he not notice his leg is touching my leg?  From the corner of my eye, I see the profile of his chin and nose, and--oh, dear God--the curve of his lips.

There.  He glanced at me.  I know he did.

I bore my eyes into the screen, trying my best to prove that I am Really Interested in this movie.  St. Clair stiffens but doesn't move his leg.  Is he holding his breath?  I think he is.  I'm holding mine.  I exhale and cringe--it's so loud and unnatural.

Again.  Another glance.  This time I turn, automatically, just as he's  turning away. It's a dance, and now there's a feeling in the air like one of us should say something.  Focus, Anna.  Focus.  "Do you like it?" I whisper.

He pauses.  "The film?"

I'm thankful the shadows hide my blush.

"I like it very much," he says.

I risk a glance, and St. Clair stares back.  Deeply.  He has not looked at me like this before.  I turn away first, then feel him turn a few beats later.

I know he is smiling, and my heart races."

How awesome is that? I mean, I don't really know what to say except I really loved the book.  I loved all the characters.  Yes, it takes place in France, but it's just good kids and a good story.  And the romantic city is a fun get away setting for the reader.  I enjoyed my time in Paris as a read this book.  I usually enjoy boarding school books, too.  It's just fun to read a book and have the fun freedom that the boarding school kids experience.  Anna was just a great girl.  She knows what she wants.  She's got goals and ambitions, but she's just a regular girl, too, hoping for her wishes to come true.  She's in the right city for that!   I recommend it and hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

The Things a Brother Knows

This new book by Dana Reinhardt was really good.  I got into really quickly and I really wanted to know what was going to happen as I kept reading.  There was a sense of mystery in the book that kept me reading.

This book tells the story of Levi, who's a high school student, and his family.  Levi's brother announces to the family that instead of college he'll be enlisting to fight in the war and be a marine.  The family was shocked and none of them wanted him to go.  But he did.  The book is about what happens when after over three years, Boaz, the brother, finally comes home.

Boaz is clearly not ok and not the same.  Levi struggles to understand what's going on, and the family doesn't really know how to deal with having Bo back home.  Each family member "handles" it differently.  But when Bo tries to leave home again - Levi is determined to follow him and see what is up with his brother.

My students have really been interested in war books this semester.  The guys in my freshmen class have liked Sunrise Over Fallujah and Purple Heart this semester.  The war in Iraq is something that the students know a lot about and many of them know people, family, or friends who are serving.  I haven't read either of those two books, but the students have told me all about them.  What I like is that we have some good books like those that deal with what it's like over there and now we have some books like this one, that deal with what happens when these soldiers come home.  It's important for the kids to read about.  Another good thing about this book is that it doesn't pick a side.  It's not a pro or con book - it's just about the two brothers.

I liked the supporting characters in this book, too.  Zim and Pearl, Levi's two friends from school are great, and fun characters.  The family members all made sense to me as well.  I liked going on this journey with Levi and Boaz.  Good book.  I am going to see if my guys who have read the other two will like this one too.

Catalyst

I love Laurie Halse Anderson - who doesn't!!  I haven't read all of her books, but I hope to get through the few I haven't read soon.  Catalyst, like her other books, was real and gripping.  It wasn't at all what I expected, but it was great.

It's about a senior in high school, Kate Malone.  Kate is one of the top students in her class, takes AP courses, and hopes to get into MIT (she really hopes she does because it's the only school to which she's applied...but no one knows that but her....).  Her dad's a preacher and she does not share his views, but takes care of him and her brother and their home.  She runs, runs, runs, too.  Especially when she can't sleep.

Kate's life consists of doing her duties everywhere:  home, school, work...but that pattern and organized life is completely turned upside down when one of her enemies at school, Teri Litch, ends up moving in with Kate and her family after Teri's family's house burns.  Needless to say, Kate doesn't want Teri and little Mikey living with them, but there's nothing she can do.  Teri made life awful for Kate when they were younger, and she doesn't seem interested in being any different this time around.  What happens because of the move in, though, is unexpected and crazy.

Kate was a great narrator.  I found her completely honest.  She is a great student, but there are many weaknesses in her that she admits to as well.  The book moved quickly for me, and though it didn't go the direction I expected it to, I was still pleased.  I wanted a little more resolution than I got.  I was satisfied with the ending, but wanted just a little more.  Like many of Anderson's other books, this one shows real inner struggle.  You feel for the characters and see life from a new point of view because of this book.  A good read.

Extraordinary

I loved Impossible by Nancy Werlin.  Extraordinary has many of the same qualities but wasn't quite as good overall.  Extraordinary is about a girl named Phoebe Rothschild who comes from a pretty well-to-do family.  In seventh grade, Phoebe, who is already a part of a powerful group of friends, sees a new girl, Mallory Tolliver.  Mallory is dressed strangely and doesn't seem to understand how to act in school, and Phoebe is drawn to her.  Phoebe decides then and there to ditch her pretty much mean friends to become friends with Mallory.  Phoebe wants to help Mallory.  That decision leads to a life long friendship between the two girls which takes them all the way through high school.

What Phoebe doesn't know about Mallory, though, is that Mallory is not of this world.  Breaking in between the regular chapters are conversations with the Faerie Queen.  Mallory is from this realm and has a task to complete in the human world.  She struggles between completing her task (which involves her best friend, Phoebe) and living a life full of love and friendship outside of the Faerie world.  Complicating this, Mallory's "brother," Ryland arrives to help speed the task up.

Phoebe gets caught in the normal life complications that all teenagers do:  parents, friends, love....But her situation is different because Mallory and Ryland need something great from Phoebe and she has no idea what it is.  Is she strong enough to do what they need her to do?  Can she overcome the great power that a magical being like Ryland holds over her?  Follow this story to see how these relationships develop in the human world and the consequences they have for the magical beings as well.

As I said, I liked this book ok.  It didn't have me as riveted as Impossible.  I felt like Impossible kept me wanting to turn pages until the very end, but in this book, I felt like the beginning dragged on a bit.  I was more interested toward the end of the book when the two worlds really came together.  The books has a great message about friendship and the power of good friends.  I definitely will recommend this book to students, but was a little disappointed it wasn't as good as Impossible.

You

I read about this one on Reading Rants and couldn't wait to get a hold of it, so when my husband saw the ARC at his work, I was really pumped.

You is about a young teenager named Kyle Chase.  He's a sophomore at Midlands High School, though if he had worked harder and gotten better grades (which he was certainly capable of) he could have been at Odyssey High (the "better, smarter" high school) with his old friends.  But he isn't there, the choices he's made have gotten him to Midlands with his friends.  Well, they are the guys he hangs out with.  Kyle doesn't even really like them all that much, but it's who's there.  Their group is called the "hoodies" because they all wear black hoodies.  They are just kind of loners and losers in a way, drinking warm beers at the park after hours, hanging out in front of the seven-eleven at night.  Kyle's lost touch with his old friends and his parents.  His parents are always bugging him to look better, get a job, do his homework and on and on and on....

So the catch is that the book starts with blood.  It's written in second person (you) and so Benoit takes you - the reader - on Kyle's journey.  The first lines get you hooked and you just have to know how Kyle ended up at this place:

You're surprised at all the blood.
He looks over at you, eyes wide, mouth dropping open, his face almost as white as his shirt.
He's surprised, too.

After this, the write takes you back to the beginning of the year and you get to walk with Kyle through his experiences.  A lot of what Kyle experiences is normal stuff, but sad.  His friends aren't that great.   He knows he isn't doing well in school but has stopped caring.  The lessons the teachers teach are stupid and really smart kids like Kyle are bored  to death.  He gets in trouble for things he doesn't do.  He can't find the courage to tell the girl he likes how he feels about her....high school.  Then a new kid shows up, Zack, and things get shaken up a bit.

This book was great.  I really wanted to just read through and through to see what happened and to get back to the beginning with all the blood.  I think all students will like this book, especially guys.  I think it's honest and scary and real.  A great read.  It comes out at the end of August/beginning of Sept.  and is a must read.  I am excited to add this one to my classroom library.

Confessions of the Sullivan Sisters

I loved Natalie Standiford's How to Say Goodbye in Robot, so I was very excited to get a chance to read her new book (due out in September) Confessions of the Sullivan Sisters.  First, this book is very different from the other one - but I liked it a lot. It was a really fun read.

The Sullivans are an extremely rich Baltimore family - but they have all their wealth because of their filthy rich grandmother whom they call - Almighty - and boy does she live up to that name.  She announces to the family on Christmas that she has cut them all out of the will because someone has offended her.  She expects a confession from this person by New Year's Day or else it's over - they'll get no money.  The Sullivan's have to have the money - it's how they survive.  Everyone knows exactly who's the problem - the girls.  Each Sullivan sister, Norrie, Jane, and Sassy, has offended Almighty lately, and so their family members make them write up their confessions for Almighty in hopes that the family fortune can be saved.

The book is divided into three parts:  one for each sister.  As I read, I basically just had to get through one sister's story at a time.  So really, the book took me three good reading sessions - but not too long.  I liked that it was divided up this way.  Standiford created three very different girls.  In a family of six, you'd have to create your own personality, and each of these girls is different from the others, but they are sisters, and you feel that bond.  I liked each girl for her own story (Norrie and Jane the most....Sassy was just ok for me - not like her name, though). The confessions are full of love, hate, life, death, feelings, and just everything.  Even though these kids are filthy rich - they still are dealing with the normal teenage issues like loving someone who isn't what your family would pick, losing friends, and feeling different.  But will their grandmother care?

So are these the confessions that Almighty wants?  Will the girls be able to put their sins out there and save their family from destruction?  Read the confessions and see for yourself.  This was a fast, fun read.  Not as "deep" as Robot I don't think, but very enjoyable.  I will continue to look forward to what Natalie Standiford has for the wonderful world of YA fiction!

Savvy

Mibs Beaumont is about to turn thirteen years old when her world changes.  Mibs knows her 13th birthday will be crazy anyway - when the kids in the Beaumont family turn thirteen, their "savvy" shows up.  Their savvies are like special powers, sort of, that appear on this birthday.  Mibs one brother can cause hurricanes, make it rain, and blow the wind in your face.  Her other brother is electric and powers everything in the Beaumont home.  Mibs has no idea what he savvy will be.

She's nervous anyway, but then she gets some bad news:  her father has been badly hurt in a terrible car accident.  The day before her birthday, her mother and brother Rocket go to be with Poppa and Mibs and the rest of the children are left on their own.  The preacher's wife in town feels sorry for Mibs and throws her a party at church, but Mibs just isn't feeling it.  She likes hanging out will Will, the preacher's son, but no one else really.  That's when she decides to run away and get to her father.  That's the only place she wants to be anyway--with Poppa.  She isn't alone, though.  Five kids (Mibs, her two brothers, Will, and Bobbie, the preacher's sixteen-year-old daughter) end up on a pink bus belonging to a bible salesman.  They think they are headed toward Salina, the city where Poppa is...but they end up driving off in the opposite direction.  Mibs now has to figure out what to do, what her savvy is, and how she can get to her dad.

This story was just sweet.  I liked the characters.  They were all colorful and unique.  The adventure on the bus was fun.  I definitely think this book is a little young for my taste, but it's a really sweet story.  I enjoyed watching Mibs figure herself out and how the kids, who didn't really know each other all that well, became close on the bus because they had to.  It's a story about family and friends and finding out who you really are.  I enjoyed the read, but would recommend it to middle schoolers and maybe ninth graders.

Ship Breaker

Ship Breaker was great.  Along the lines of Hunger Games and other dystopian fiction we've seen out lately, it paints a picture of our country in the future after many years of destruction and shows what life is like.  In this case there are two kinds of people the very rich and the very poor.  The view of the poor is what you get to see at the beginning of Ship Breaker.

The story follows a young boy named Nailer.  Nailer works with a crew of "ship breakers."  Basically, everyone ran out of oil, the city of New Orleans was flooded time and time again, hurricanes come all the time now (the poles have melted), and all the boats and tankers of the previous age are laid to waste along the gulf shore.  Nailer's and other crews break the old oil ships down for their parts.  It's a rough life.  There's not much to eat and Nailer is beginning to worry about what he'll do once he becomes to big to be on "light" crew.  On top of all this, his father is a druggie and drunk who abuses Nailer and causes problems all the time.  It's business as usual until after a storm (a city killer) Nailer and his friend and coworker Pima discover a majestic clipper ship washed up on their shore.  Nailer's seen the beautiful, sleek ships in magazines and from a distance...he's dreamt about what life must be like for the rich people on those boats.  As he and Pima check out the damage they discover one survivor, a girl.  They have to decide between helping this girl or just stripping the ship of everything - including her life.  They could be rich...they could have a better life....but can they just leave her there?

The rest of the book follows their decisions and the consequence of those decisions.  The book was fast paced and didn't drag at all.  Once they discover the girl, it all races by.  It also paints a picture of what our world might look like if we don't take care of it.  As they travel inland at one point in the book to New Orleans and Orleans II, Nita asks about what happened.  Nailer responds,

"Stupid," Nailer muttered..."They were damn stupid." Tool shrugged.  "No one expected Category Six hurricanes.  They didn't have city killers then.  The climate changed.  The weather shifted.  They did not anticipate well." 

Nailer wondered at that idea.  That no one could have understood that they would be the target of monthly hurricanes pinballing up the Mississippi Alley, gunning for anything that didn't have sense to batten down, float, or go underground.

It's a creepy view of the gulf in the future.  In addition, though, this is a story about family and how you make it.  Nailer's dad is a bad man, but that doesn't mean that Nailer will become that way or has to.  Family and home are where you make them.  Nailer learns a lot about this as he fights for a friend's life.  A good read. 

Mercury

I haven't read too many graphic novels, and I am hoping to keep up with the genre more.  The kids like them.  I was excited to read Hope Larson's Mercury.  It was a great graphic novel for me to start with!

Mercury alternates between two stories.  Both stories are set in Nova Scotia and both main characters are teen-aged girls dealing with life stuff.  In the present is Tara.  She and her mom lost their old house to a fire.  Tara is living with her aunt, uncle, and cousin while her mom looks for work out of town to try to help them get back on their feet after losing everything.  Tara feels nervous going back to high school (10th grade) because she'd been home schooled for a while and she doesn't know if she'll get the hang of it.  She does pretty good though and even gets a love interest very soon after school starts.  What connects her to the past is a necklace that her aunt let her have out of her mom's old jewelry box.  The necklace is beautiful but seems to have a mind of its own.

The other story is set in the same place but in 1859.  Josey is living with her family when a mysterious stranger shows up and wants to go into business mining for gold with Josey's father.  They strike up a deal and begin.  He's a handsome stranger, and Josey has to decide how she feels about him even though her mother gets a very bad vibe from the man.  He has a mysterious necklace that he is very protective of.

The elusive pot o gold binds these two stories together.  Read to see how the two stories intertwine and what happens with the necklace that has survived the generations and now lives on Tara's neck.

The book was great.  It was a quick read.  I stayed interested the whole time because Larson takes you back and forth quickly.  It was neat to be reminded that even though  times are different, family, love, and loss are the same no matter what.  I highly recommend this one to all.

Goddess Boot Camp

Beach Read #3 -  I loved Oh. My. Gods. so much when I read it recently, so I was pumped to see that the sequel had come out in paper back.  It was great.  Both of these books are quick, fast, and enjoyable reads.  I raced through them and had so much fun.

Phoebe just found out in the last book that she is a descendant of Nike and has actual powers.  The problem - she can't control them.  Most kids at her special school for descendants of the gods learn about their powers and how to control them at a very young age...and Phoebe is way behind.  She's making it snow inside her house, calling up massive amounts of pastries when she's hungry and causing problems for everyone because she can't get her powers under control.

The answer to this problem is Goddess Boot Camp which Phoebe's stepfather signs her up for.  While she's got other stuff on her mind (like spending time with boyfriend Griffin Blake and training with him for the marathon in the Pythian games) she knows she's got to get help or else.  Unfortunately...she knows she won't enjoy this camp so much when she shows up and sees that she's with all ten year olds. To make matters worse, the camp is run by her stepsister, Stella, and her boyfriends ex - Adara.  Great!  Phoebe trains, hangs out with friends, deals with love and issues from her past, solves a little mystery and tries to get ready for the test that the gods have set for her.

I loved the first book in this series, and the second one was just as good.  The characters were developed even more.  It's just such a fun concept...a fun super hero tale from a different point of view.  I hope that we get to see more adventures of Phoebe and her crew.  I definitely plan to check out Childs' new series about a mermaid girl princess called Forgive My Fins.  So fun...a lighter, girlier Percy Jackson. 

The Carrie Diaries

Beach Read #2 for me was The Carrie Diaries.  I had been looking forward to reading this for a long time.  While most young girls reading this book won't really know the series Sex and the City - but I did watch the show and was just excited to read about high school Carrie.

Carrie is starting her senior year of high school and her fashion is unique even then (I believe she begins the first day of school wearing white go-go boots).  The plan for all the girls in Carrie's crew (Lali, Maggie, and the Mouse) is to get boyfriends.  It's the same guys as always except for one - Sebastian Kydd.  He's back after supposedly being kicked out of private school.  He's mysterious, cute, and every one wants a piece of him.

I loved this book so much.  The four girls are each very different much like on the show, and it's cool.  Carrie is just a cool girl, but a normal girl, too.  She's not the hottest person in school or the most popular - she's not the lowest on the social ladder either.  She swims on the swim team and goes to parties.  She loves to dress in cool clothes, and she dreams big of becoming a writer.  Her writing doesn't come easily though.  She has to work on it and find her subjects and her voice....but once she does - it's on world.

This was a happy book about high school stuff:  love, friends, sex, parties, family, loss...the whole lot.  It was a great read. 

After Tupac and D Foster

This quick read started off my summer beach reading.  This book is about two girls (the narrator and her best friend Neeka) who live in Queens.  They've been friends forever and have their routine in their neighborhood.  Then one day a girl shows up and starts talking to them.  She's beautiful and cool.  She's different...almost like she's from another planet.  The girls get to know each other and it's like they've always been just them three.  This is a story about their friendship.

In the background of all this, too, is family drama - good and bad and of course, Tupac.  I liked the storyline involving Neeka's brother (who is really a sista).  He's in jail and dealing with that.  It was powerful to see the love of the family.  They were always there for him.

This book was pretty good.  It was a great story about friendship and family.  I liked it.

The Last Summer of the Death Warriors by Francisco X. Stork

I loved Marcelo and the Real World by Stork, and Death Warriors is a close second.  His male characters are just wonderful dudes.  In this new book, a boy named Pancho is almost a senior in high school.  His father is killed in a freak work accident and then his sister (who is older but mentally slow) mysteriously dies in a hotel room. 

Pancho believes his sister was murdered.  He gets sent to a home for boys - basically an orphanage.  It's not bad, maybe nice actually.  Regardless of what "the system" is going to do with him, he knows what he will do with himself.  He is g oing to find the man who murdered his sister and kill him. 

He can't just sit alone and plan this all out, though, because from the moment he arrives at the home, he is matched up with a boy named D. Q.  D. Q.  is a young many who just found out that he has a really rare cancer disease.  The two boys hang out.  Pancho wouldn't say they're friends, but after time passes, the two become close.  Pancho helps D. Q. and takes him to treatments.

D. Q. is working on his Death Warrior Manifesto - his writings about "sucking the marrow" out of life and living his days to the fullest.  These ideas are completely the opposite of Pancho's - who doesn't even see life any more or care what happens to him if he carries out his plan.

The book follows the relationship of the two.  It's funny and honest.  D. Q. is a character that gets in your heart.  He just knows what people needs.  We all know people who seem to "see" more than others...people who are just tuned in.  D. Q. is one of those people. 

The story wasn't as suspenseful for me as Marcelo, but I liked it a lot.  A good read.  I will continue to look forward to more by Stork.

Rosie and Skate by Beth Ann Bauman

Love, love, loved this book!!  I saw a review of it on Reading Rants which made me want to read it.  It totally lived up to my expectations.

Rosie and Skate are two sisters who live on the Jersey Shore.  They're locals and work at the shore during the summer while it's full of tourists.  Their dad is an alcoholic - a nice drunk - but still a drunk.  He can't stop drinking.  He doesn't hurt the girls or cause many problems, but he gets out of control one night driving and crashes and lands himself three months in jail.  Rosie and Skate are on their own because their mom is dead.

Their cousin, Angie, comes to live with them and help out, but once their father goes to jail, things are harder between the sisters.  Rosie is hopeful and visits her father and still somehow believes he will get better, while Skate refuses  to go at all.  Skate doesn't attend the support group meetings.  Instead, she spends time at work with her boss Nick, and also pining away after her boyfriend Perry who is gone to college at Rutgers.  She wants to see Perry so badly.  The two of them are great together, but the distance is a problem.

The book alternates between the narration of each sister.  It's cool to hear the story from two points of view.  The writing was real and easy to read.  I liked the characters and the story of each sister.  This was a fun read with some serious stuff mixed in.  I totally loved it!

Here's a link to the New York Times review of Rosie and Skate.

Slam by Nick Hornby

Sam Jones is a normal kid who loves to skate (board that is...not on ice).  He does ok in school and hangs with his friends.  One thing that's a little different about him is that his mom is really young...in fact she had him when she was sixteen...so she's way younger than most of his friends' moms, but it's cool - she's a good mom, and they do alright.

Sam "talks" to Tony Hawk a lot and has read Hawk's biography maybe a thousand times.  Tony always gives good advice.

Sam's normal life of school and skating change a bit, though, when he meets a gorgeous girl named Alicia.  They end up going out, hanging out, and having a great time.  In about two seconds, though, their lives change...they make a baby.

This book takes you on the journey with Sam as he works through his relationships with friends, with Alicia, with his own parents, with Alicia's snobby parents, and with his baby on the way.  It's a very honest look at teen pregnancy.  I enjoyed the read.  I liked Sam as a narrator.  He was honest and always told it like it was.  The other characters were great, too.  Overall, a good book.

The Adoration of Jenna Fox by Mary E. Pearson

Jenna Fox wakes up after being gone/out/something for a year.  She knows there was an accident and that she was in a coma for a year.  She doesn't know much of anything except that they tell her she is Jenna Fox.  She's got discs to watch of her past, but none of it seems to click at first.  She feels awkward in her body and tries to get used to being awake and back with the real world.

Jenna doesn't feel like the girl that she sees on the videos, but bit by bit, she starts to remember things and piece together voices, memories, and parts of her past.  However, with some memories and feelings, Jenna becomes even more confused about what exactly happened during the year she was "in a coma."  Her family isn't the same as she sees/remembers, and her grandmother doesn't seem to want to deal with her at all.  She tries to make life somewhat normal by going to school and making friends, but she is haunted by what she begins to know and what she still has to figure out about herself.

This book is a nice sci-fi/teen mix.  It's got some creepy futuristic mysteries yet focuses on Jenna's relationships with those around her.  Sometimes figuring out who you are is hard enough when everything in your life is "normal."  Well, for Jenna, whose situation is way far from normal, it's even worse.  Her parents have made decisions that will affect her for the rest of her life.

I liked this book a lot.  It was fast paced and interesting.  The reader gets to piece together bits of Jenna's life right along with her, so you're always guessing how it all fits.  I was interested in the science-y stuff, but also pulled in by the relationships.  As I read this book I thought of Frankenstein.  This book has some things in common with Frankenstein...especially when Jenna confronts her parents about what happened during her mysterious "year off."

A great read and a unique concept. 

The Sky Is Everywhere by Jandy Nelson

Seventeen year old Lennie is trying to make it through being back at school after the sudden, tragic death of her beautiful sister, Bailey.  Their mom left when they were young and the girls lived with their grandmother.  Dealing with death is hard enough on a teenager, but Lennie's issues become even more complicated when she not only starts to have strong feelings for the amazingly hot, beautiful, talented new boy at school, Joe, but also Toby - her sisters boyfriend.  She's never been in a relationship or even kissed many people for that matter, so when she has to deal with feelings for two guys at once, it's a lot.  And the one person she wishes were there to talk about it with - her sister - is dead.  In Jandy Nelson's debut novel, Lennie's life is put right out there for the reader to follow.  This book is beautifully written and full of emotions:  passion, sadness, confusion.  I absolutely loved it and couldn't put it down.  What I loved most of all was just the descriptions of love.  First, true, forever loves are amazing and the way that Nelson writes about Lennie's feelings will hit home with adults and teens alike.  You must read this book.  It is amazing!

Eli the Good by Silas House

In 1976, Eli Book is a ten year old kid who lives in the beautiful countryside and enjoys life.  He loves to write, play with his best friend Edie, and be in the woods with the trees.  If only life were this easy, though.  This book is a reflection on a summer in Eli's life in which life was really simple but also completely complicated at the same time.  Eli's father is a Vietnam veteran and has problems and flashbacks related to the war.  Eli wants to understand about this but his father won't talk to him about it at all.  Eli decides to go about finding out about his father's time in the war on his own.  Edie is a close friend for Eli, but even this simple relationship is complicated when Edie announces that he parents are getting divorced.  Eli's sixteen-year-old sister, Josie begins acting differently and questioning everything.  His crazy war-protesting aunt, Nell, shows up to live with them for the summer.  All these people are dealing with so much and Eli narrates the story of a family struggling to be together and stay together even during rough times.  The book is told by the grown-up Eli.  He gives insights into the summer that he can only have by looking back.  I liked this book ok.  It was interesting to read about the father's time in Vietnam, and I could identify with Eli when he wanted to know about his parents but couldn't find a way to ask.  I appreciated the portrait of this family and Eli's reflection but kept waiting for more. 

Scarlett Fever by Maureen Johnson

Shop Indie BookstoresI was soooooo mad when this book ended.  Once I got into Scarlett Fever, the sequel to Suite Scarlett, I was hooked and then it just ended on me.  I am definitely already ready for the next installment of this fabulous New York girl and her life.

So Scarlett Fever picks up after the first book, obviously.  The hotel Hamlet production has ended and now life seems blank, bleary, and boyless as Scarlett looks around the empty hotel.  School's about to start and she still works for the crazy Mrs. Amberson, but she can't stop thinking about Eric, her sort-of boyfriend from the summer.

Mrs. Amberson started her own acting agency which has one client (Spencer, Scarlett's brother) as of now, but they are hoping to find more.

Scarlett's older siblings seem depressed while her younger sister, Marlene is strangely acting nice.

On top of all this, enter Chelsea Biggs and her crazy stage mom....oh, and Max, Chelsea's brother.  Mrs. Amberson wants Chelsea to sign with the agency but needs to use her "secret weapon," Scarlett to seal the deal and make it work.  Scarlett finds herself starting school, pining away for Eric, dealing with her brothers acting career, walking a rat dog that pees everywhere, and getting annoyed to death by Max who is in high school yet seems to act like a troll or fifth grader every time she's around him.

Sounds like a wonderful start to the year, huh?

Well, in this second book you get to follow Scarlett around the city on her crazy errands and adventures as she continues to find her place in the city, the world, and her own life.  I loved this book just as much as the first and can't wait for Scarlett #3.  (And I am wondering what the next titles will be and how they will use Scarlett's name....Oh, and my only beef with this book is the cover.  I know it matches the paperback....but I'm annoyed that it doesn't "go" with the first book...they don't look like sister books or friends....but that's not really a big deal.)