Going Bovine by Libba Bray

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The Lowdown
Cameron Smith is a (sort of) normal teenager. He stays semi-aware of what’s going on around him and occasionally hangs out in the “smokers lounge” bathroom in his school. That is until he starts to have some crazy-mad hallucinations. When fire giants appear out of nowhere and chase you around, something is definitely wrong.

Cam’s parents think he’s on drugs, and Cameron hasn’t a clue what’s going on. All he knows is that he’s seeing some crazy stuff and he doesn’t feel too hot. The doctors finally tell him that he had Mad Cow Disease...not what your average teenager expects to hear.

From this moment on, Cameron’s life journey gets really exciting, scary, and crazy all at the same time. Unexpectedly, he teams up with Gonzo, a little person who games constantly and always thinks he’s dying. Determined not to let mad cow get the best of him, and also determined to save the world, Cameron and Gonzo start off on the mother of all road trips. They go to New Orleans to hang out with dead jazz artist, end up living for a while in a “happiness” cult, and spend spring break at the Party House!! They also learn about and contemplate human existence, string theory, and many other philosophies. Climb into Cameron’s mind and into his car to take the journey of a lifetime.

What I Liked
In the most hilarious way, Bray’s book makes us look deep at ourselves and what we do in the world. The teens at the party house are insane and just want to be on television. The kids at the happiness cult don’t want anything bad to every happen to anyone. So many of the adventures that Cameron and Gonzo go on show humans at their most interesting. For example, while the two are at the happiness cult, where everyone wants to keep his/her happiness at the max all the time, Cameron tries to check out a book...The library girl tells him, “You can turn it in at the end of the week. Or whenever, really. It’s just a formality. We find that requiring things of people and making them responsible is a big drag, and that is so not happy. Enjoy!” I found myself always laughing out loud at the sardonic wit of many of Bray’s characters and the complete and utter idiocy of others. All these people together made for a very interesting ride.

I also really loved that all of Bray’s plot lines and ideas really came together in interesting ways as I read. So much craziness is thrown about during this road trip, yet Bray kept control of it all and it, somehow, all made perfect sense when I was done...or as much sense as it could.

Read this if...
You want a fun ride.
You want to go on a road trip.
You want to meet Baldar, son of Odin, a great Norse god...and party with him!
You want to laugh at crazy people.
You want to save the world from a black hole.
You want to think about why we’re here and what this crazy life is all about.

Grade: A-

The Story of Edgar Sawtelle

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I teach Hamlet to my seniors at school, and so I had to read The Story of Edgar Sawtelle so I could see how this wonderful, celebrated book connected to one of my favorite Shakespeare plays.

This book tells the story of a young boy, Edgar, who is mute. He signs to his parents, Gar and Trudy, who live with him on their farm. They breed and train their own breed of dogs simply known as Sawtelle dogs. Gar, Edgar's father, is intrigued by dogs and is trying to create a dog that is a wonderful, attentive, and trained companion. Edgar and his mother help with the dogs and all is well on their farm...until Edgar's uncle, Claude shows up. Claude is mysterious and clearly has problems with Gar, his older brother. Edgar watches and listens, but when his father dies suddenly one night, Edgar's world is turned upside down....he suspects his uncle but doesn't know what to do.

The story that follows is about how Edgar deals with his father's death with the dogs at his side. He observes and makes his own moves.

I really loved this book. It took me a while to get through, but I also really wanted to make sure to give it all the time it deserved. While I was intrigued by the adult characters, I mostly loved being with Edgar and in his mind. I loved thinking as he thought and seeing the world through his eyes. Another perspective I also appreciated and loved was the point of view of Almondine, the Sawtelle's dog. I felt that the author clearly showed what the dog was thinking and feeling.

I think that this book can appeal to YA lovers, because at it's heart, it is a story about a boy and his dogs. It's also a classic Hamlet retelling in which a son seeks to revenge his father's death. If you know Hamlet, you will love this book and enjoy making connections between the two. I hope that some of my students will choose this book when we do our fiction project with Hamlet. We'll see!

TONS OF GREAT BOOKS! My recent favs...

So....I have read so much this summer and since school started, that I have decided to just give a quick run down of my recent reads and recommendations. I usuall prefer to do a longer post about each book, but it's been a while since I read some of these. I will get back to posting regularly now that I am caught up. So here they are...my recent picks.

Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins - This is the second book in The Hunger Games trilogy. It picks up right where book one left off, and is FULL of surprises. We follow Katniss back home to District 12 where she is now a celebrity. Life should be easier now that she's won the games, but it's not. If you haven't read either of these books, you MUST...it's my favorite new series since Harry Potter. I love these characters. The books are so exciting, too.

Inexcusable by Chris Lynch This book is short but really powerful. Told from the point of view of Keir Safafian, a star footbal player, Inexcusable is the story of a "good guy" who has been accused of doing a "bad thing." Keir's girlfriend is upset with him and as the story unfolds you have to see what you believe. What really happened? Keir says he would never hurt his girlfriend, Gigi, but no one really knows what happened. Read this book to see what Keir remembers and if he did, in fact, do somethin that is inexcusable.

Notes from the Dog by Gary Paulsen Gary Paulsen is one of the greatest kids' writers ever! My students love Hatchet and all the Brian books, but Paulsen's new stuff is really amazing and great too. His books are short but packed with realistic characters and powerful stories. Notes from the Dog is about 15 year Finn, who is a regular kid...not that cool, but not really that bad. He sort of thinks he's a loser, but he's a little too hard on himself, I think. Anyway, Finn lives with his dad and also another kid from his school, Matthew. Matthew is actually cool and is staying with Finn because Matt's parents got divorced and he's not ready to move yet. Dylan, the dog (named after Bob Dylan...who's mentioned in the book) is always around, too. These two guys hang out and their summer suddenly gets much more interesting when a 20-something college student named Johanna moves in. She is really nice to the boys and genuinely interested in getting to know them while she house sits next door for the summer. She also happens to be battle breast cancer. Johanna and the boys and the dog become great friends. She asks Finn to make a garden for her as a project for the summer. This story is a great one about a unique and powerful friendship. I loved every word. What makes it even better is that these people are so real. Finn is a regular kid and I loved getting to read this story about him. A really great book for all, and it deals with cancer, too...but in a good way. It might be good for kids who have experienced situations like this in their real lives.

Deadline by Chris Crutcher This story blew me away, and I learned a lot about football reading this book. Ben Wolf is ready for his senior year of high school to begin. During a routine sports physical, though, he gets some shocking news from his doctor - He is going to die. This year. Ben is 18 years old, though, and he decides then and there that he is going to live a normal senior year. He decides not to tell his parents, and his doctor honors his wishes. So Ben sets off to do everything he wants. He goes out for the football team, asks out the love of his life, and begins working on experiencing what life has to offer. Can he keep it up forever? What will happen if/when he gets sick? I loved this book. It's great for all ages, girls and guys, and Ben and his brother Cody are great guys that I loved reading about.

Little Brother by Cory Doctorow - This book is the most amazing techno-geek book ever! It follows Marcus, a smart, normal computer geeky kid around San Francisco. When terrorists attack the Bay Bridge one day while Marcus and his friends are skipping school, they get pick up by the Department of Homeland Security and aren't heard from for days. What happened while they were being held captive? Did their parents know that they were safe? What did they even do, anyway? After they are released, Marcus sees that the city he loves is not the same. No one has any privacy and DHS officers are following your every move. This book shows what Marcus and friends did to take back their city.

When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead Even though this book is more of a middle reader level, I loved it. If you read and loved A Wrinkle in Time, you should read this book. It is about a girl named Miranda and her best friend Sal. One day Sal quits talking to Miranda, and her entire life begins to change. She also finds a note that says, "I am coming to save your friend's life, and my own. I ask two favors. First you must write me a letter." Miranda has no idea what to do, but thinks and plans, and reads more of the letters. This was a fun story about friends and time.

Castration Celebration by Jake Wizner Wizner's Spanking Shakespeare is one of the funniest books ever and a personal favorite of mine. When I saw that Wizner had a new book out, I bought it immediately. It's a great battle of the sexes story involving Olivia, a girl who has sworn off guys to write a musical, and Max, the "it" guy who always gets the girl and is oh so wonderful and handsome. Olivia is upset because she caught her dad cheating on her mom with one of his college students, and so she wants to work on her musical revenge masterpiece over the summer at Yale art camp. Max is there to hone his acting skills. This book goes back and forth between Olivia's musical and the regular narration. I loved it. Not quite as funny as Spanking Shakespeare, but a really good read. The songs in her musical are hilarious.

Marcelo in the Real World by Francisco X. Stork

Marcelo is 17 and getting ready to begin his senior year. Marcelo is different from others. He hears music during the everyday moments of his life, and he sees the world in a different way from some people. He is diagnosed as having Asperger's syndrome. He has attended a special school throughout his life and has worked in the stables at his school taking care of the horses during the summer.

Marcelo is very intelligent and his father thinks that it is time for Marcelo to stop working at his school and move out into the real world. He wants Marcelo to work in his law firm mail room for the summer so that Marcelo can see what the world is really like outside of his school. Marcelo's experience in the mailroom brings him into contact with a lovely young woman named Jasmine. Jasmine is a spunky young lady, and she shows Marcelo the ropes. During this summer at the law firm, we follow Marcelo at his job and experience the world as he experiences it. He is disturbed when he one day finds a picture of a girl whose face is destroyed on one side. He becomes determined to find out what happened to this girl and to help her if he can. His search will show him more of the real world that he even knows.

This book was GREAT. First, it's wonderful to read. I loved Marcelo's voice as a narrator. He was honest, and I knew he was reporting things to me in a truthful way. He worked out issues in his head and as the reader, you just got to follow along and see how he came to the conclusions that he came to. I felt like when I was reading Marcelo and seeing the world through his eyes, that I was seeing the world in a more pure way. He hasn't been tainted by hurt, and cruelty, and many of the sad things in the world, and I saw with fresh eyes when reading this book.

The characters in this book are all wonderfully written, too. I felt that they were all good people, even if the book showed a bad side of them. People in real life are complicated. You may trust someone and then they hurt you. It's hard to reconcile these feelings, but that's life. Life is full of contradictions, and Marcelo finds this out as he interacts with all the other characters in the book, good and bad.

I think this book is a must read for everyone, young adults and adults. It's a great story with a memorable character. We all can learn a lot from Marcelo.

Grade: A

The Luxe by Anna Godberson

So, honestly, as a grown-up, I felt a little guilty for picking up The Luxe at the bookstore, but I really loved that dress on the cover!  I was hoping for some turn of the century, gossip-girl-like drama, and that is exactly what I got with this book.

The Luxe takes place in 1899 in Manhattan, and it was really fun to be taken back to the times when people "called" upon one another and attended fabulous parties.   Not that people don't attend parties now, but back then the parties were different.

The main characters are Elizabeth and Diana Holland, two New York sisters who are very much at the center of the social scene in Manhattan.  Elizabeth has been away in Europe, and her return starts the action of the story.  She and her sister have to appear to have lots of money, when the  truth is that  they have none.  Their father died and since then their mother has had to pay off his large debts, leaving the girls with nothing but their reputations....kind of reminds me of Rose and her mother in the movie Titanic.  With this knowledge weighing on her, Elizabeth has to play her part well and try to find a good match.  The wonderful and rich Henry Schoonmaker is single and a great catch that girls would die for. The only problem is that she sort of loves someone else...

Of course there must be a bad girl to add to this mix, and that's where Elizabeth's friend Penelope comes in.  Penelope is the wild girl (reminds me of Blair on Gossip Girl) and she always makes sure things are stirred up.

So against this backdrop, the girls, the guys, and the parents all try to match each other up.

I like the writing style of this book.  It was easy to read, but unique, too, because Godberson starts each chapter off with a little "real life snippet" of something:  a letter, a newspaper article, a line from the gossip column of the paper...and then the chapter starts from there.  Each chapter is focused on one of the girls, too, so you get to see things from each girls point of view.

I really enjoyed the book.  I did sort of figure out how things would unfold before they did, but it was ok, and still a fun book to read.  I did get the sequel, Rumors, and plan to read it soon.  All in all a fun book with old school girl drama, which, really, isn't that different from the girl drama of today.  I recommend this book to readers who are interested in drama, relationships, and love.

Grade:  B

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

Nothing makes me madder than when people are mean to a sweet orphaned child.  Cinderella was treated badly.  Harry Potter had to sleep in the cupboard under the stairs.  We read these stories all the time.  Jane Eyre begins just like many of them, with a young girl struggling to live in a house where no one loves her.  Her parents are dead, her aunt hates having to take care of her, and her cousins are mean bullies. 

But somehow, Jane makes it.  This story was amazing.  I will admit that I tried to read this book twice before I actually got through it, but I loved every step of the way.  It's not as easy to zip through a classics as it is to read, say, The Luxe, but it's very rewarding.  

Jane moves from her aunt's house to a school called Lowood.  Lowood is home to other orphan girls, and here Jane gets an education and actually makes a friend or two.  The reader then follows Jane on the journey of her life.  Jane moves on and finds herself eventually as a young woman traveling to Thornfield Hall to be a governess to a bubbly young girl named Adele.  

Thornfield Hall is creepy.  Old and sort of empty, Jane wonders about the people who live and work there.  She doesn't meet the master of the house, and the servants say he doesn't come around a lot.  There are strange screams and cries and laughter that Jane hears, too, which concern her a bit.  Once Jane becomes a resident at Thornfield, though, her life will never be the same.  

I definitely recommend this book.  I really loved it.  It's a gothic novel and has spooky settings and situations.  There's a little mystery, and even more, there's love.  Ghosts and love in one book is a lot of fun.  The language was great, and I really got to know and like Jane as a person. She is calm and humble, and I learned a lot by watching her deal with all kinds of people.  

Grade:  A

Back with My Summer Reading List

Wow, I have completely neglected my book blogging this summer.  I have read a lot, though.  I am going to have many reviews of my summer books coming in the next few days.  Here's what I have read and will share:

The Luxe

Jane Eyre

The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing Volume II -  The Kingdom on the Waves

Catching Fire

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Marcelo in the Real World

Inexcusable

I still have about two real, full weeks of summer vacation left, so I plan to read lots more before school starts, and I always read lots even during the school year.