Plot Summary:  Only at Manderley Academy to please her parents, if being away from home and super hard classes were not enough, the “new girl” is faced with reminders of the girl whose place she took–Becca.  She is in Becca’s room, she has feelings for Max Holloway, the love of Becca’s life and strange hints of what might have happened to Becca who just disappeared one night.  She doesn’t want Becca’s life, regardless of what roommate Dana thinks, but what will happen if Becca comes back?

Critical Analysis:  A little contrived in places, this re-telling of Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier mostly works.  Most of the contrivances take place at the beginning.  I wish the author could have figured out another way to get the new girl into the story and at the boarding school…her parents remember her 8th grade wish and apply as a surprise?  And she doesn’t tell them that she doesn’t really want to go so goes anyway for her senior year?  Hard to buy, especially since she spends so much, especially at the beginning, longing for home and family and friends.  I also found some of the re-imagining/re-telling to be a little, well, literal.  A costume party where Dana Veers convinces the new girl to wear the same costume as Becca–straight out of the original.

And yet, the whole cruelty and cattiness between some of the girls really works, as does the isolation and independence of boarding school.  As with the original, the character of Becca and the mystery of what happened to her overshadows everything–the new girl can’t escape.  And still, the new girl manages to overcome, to be herself, to like her life, her situation and to realize she is more than just some girl from Florida, or some new girl who took a popular girl’s place.  I think teens girls will really like this, and if other blog reviews are any indication, they won’t have read the original but perhaps now they will seek it out–and maybe the movie too.

Readalikes: Breathless by Jessica Warman–Katie didn’t expect to like the boarding school, she didn’t want to be away from her older brother Will.  She can just be one of the girls, and focus on swimming and schoolwork.   So why then does she tell everyone he’s dead?

Looking for Alaska by John Green–Miles “Pudge” Halter is abandoning his ordinary life, leaving for boarding school where he is surrounded by friends whose lives are everything except ordinary. When tragedy strikes the close-knit group, Pudge realizes that life is to be lived and love to be given freely.

Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier–the inspiration for the story, which has great teen appeal in its own right.

Reviewed from publisher provided advanced e-galley.  Amazon Affiliate: If you click from here to Amazon and buy something, I receive a percentage of the purchase price.

Plot Summary:  Mickey Bolitar is not having a very good year.  His dad is dead, his mom is in rehab, and Mickey is forced to change schools and live with the uncle he doesn’t really know.   When his new girlfriend doesn’t show up to school one day, Mickey grows worried and with the help of his new friends decides to look for her.

Critical Analysis:  I am a fan of Harlan Coben’s Myron Bolitar series.  I think that he has a knack for combining quirky characters with real pathos and lots of dry wit added in for good measure.  When I heard there was going to be a young adult series about Myron and Win, I was interested but wondered how that would work, as they did not meet till college. and Win is, well, not a character you would think belongs in many teen books.  So I was glad when the series about Mickey was announced.

Mickey is actually introduced in the last Myron book, Live Wire.  The beginning of Shelter is the ending of Live Wire from Mickey’s point of view.  I have been disappointed lately in bestselling adult authors who have written young adult books just to capitalize on this growing market.  (I was going to name names, but decided most people would be able to think of at least one…)

So it is both a relief and a delight to report that this is a good beginning to what I hope will be a long running series.  (I was going to be mad at Coben if that weren’t the case.  There are not enough books in this genre being written for teens today but we don’t need poorly written ones either.)

Despite sharing a talent for playing basketball, wisecracking  and a deep love for family, Mickey is not Myron.  I bet Myron wishes he would have thought to yell “Homework” whenever his parents were giving him grief.  Perhaps it is because he is a teen, but Mickey feels things more deeply, and is trying to find the balance between being independent and taking help from others.  Mickey’s friends are great, moving beyond the stereotypes they represent as are the stereotypical jocks who have it in for him.  (Shades of Myron again who just can’t seem to keep his mouth shut around meatheads.)  The secondary storyline about the Bat Lady who says his father might still be alive is intriguing and appears to be a thread that will run through at least the first part of the series.

I hope teens find their way to Shelter, and perhaps to the Myron books as well which aside from a great deal of violence are teen friendly.

Review Excerpts: “Shelter begins one of the oddest—and most appealing spinoff series in recent years….[T]he youngster copes with some adult-sized problems, including his father’s death, his mother’s drug abuse problems, switching high schools, and his new living situation. Everything seems less pressing, however, than the mysteries surrounding the disappearance of a new girlfriend.”–Barnes and Noble

“Edgy and action-filled, the novel has interesting, likable characters, and it should fly off the shelves.”
—School Library Journal

“Crackerjack pace and multi-layered plotting…”—Kirkus Reviews

“Coben’s semi-noir style translates well to YA, and the supporting cast is thoroughly entertaining. It’s a strong start to the series.”—Publishers Weekly

“Quite satisfying and points to a good deal of potential for what might come next.”—Booklist

Reviewed from publisher provided advanced copy.  Amazon Affiliate: If you click from here to Amazon and buy something, I receive a percentage of the purchase price.

Bibliography: Cohn, Rachel and David Levithan. (2010). Dash and Lily’s Book of Dares.  New York: Knopf Books for Young Readers.  IBSN: 978-0375866593 (hc) 978-0375859557 (pb)

Plot Summary:  On his own in New York for the Christmas holidays, Dash finds a red moleskine notebook in the J.D. Salinger section of the Strand bookstore.  The notebook contains a challenge from the mysterious Lily.  Are Dash and Lily destined to meet in real life?  Or do they only live in the notebook they pass back and forth?

Critical Analysis:  One of my dreams is to visit New York City during the Christmas season.  With this book, I felt like I was there.  I really liked the clever collaboration, and I will need to go back and read their other  joint novels (Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist, Naomi & ely’s No Kiss List) to see what other fun I missed.  The dares were fun, Lily’s crazy family who assisted her and Dash’s diverse group of friends just added to the story.  Lots of humor and wit along with holiday details and a New York back drop make this an excellent holiday read for teens and adults.

Review Excerpts: “Cohn and Levithan use a familiar but fun formula for this holiday-themed collaboration–think Saint Nick & Norah–mixing an enticing premise with offbeat characters and some introspective soul searching….there are more than enough amusing turns of phrase and zigzag plot twists to keep their attention”–Publisher’s Weekly

“The spirit of the season amplifies Dash and Lily’s loneliness and heightens the connection between them, in another surefire hit from the creators of Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist (2006).”–Booklist

“As they did in Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist (Knopf, 2006), the authors combine their talents to write an appealing book. It makes readers long to buy a notebook, begin filling its pages, and find a friend who might turn out to be more. This book will spend as much time off the shelf as Lily’s notebook.”–School Library Journal

Reviewed from public library e-book copy.  Amazon Affiliate: If you click from here to Amazon and buy something, I receive a percentage of the purchase price.

]]> http://readspace.net/2011/12/holiday-reading-dash-lilys-book-of-dares-by-rachel-cohn-and-david-levithan/feed/ 0 http://readspace.net/2011/10/review-17-things-im-not-allowed-to-do-any-more-by-jenny-offill-and-nancy-carpenter/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=review-17-things-im-not-allowed-to-do-any-more-by-jenny-offill-and-nancy-carpenter http://readspace.net/2011/10/review-17-things-im-not-allowed-to-do-any-more-by-jenny-offill-and-nancy-carpenter/#comments Thu, 27 Oct 2011 01:22:38 +0000 http://readspace.net/?p=1676

Bibliography: Offill, Jenny and Nancy Carpenter. (2006).  17 Things I’m Not Allowed to Do Any More. New York: Schwartz and Wade.  ISBN: 9780375835964 (hc) 9780375866012 (pbk)

Plot Summary:  A mischievous little girl has a lot of seemingly good ideas but they all seem to get her in trouble.

Critical Analysis:  Books like this one make me miss being a children’s librarian and seeing new picture books and reading them at story time.  This one is so much fun, and such a marriage between the text and the artwork to tell the story, communicate the emotion to the reader.  The pictures, a combination of pen and ink drawings and digitally manipulated images on crumpled paper not only fill in some of the details, but also are the kind that children will want to examine even after the story is finished.  In addition, the text leaves room for the reader or listener to come up with their own ideas about what happens.  Or in my case, to think about other great ideas that might not turn out so well.  ”I had an idea…”

Review Excerpts:  ”Ingenious artwork–a flawless marriage of digital imagery and pen-and-ink–is indisputably the focus of this winning title….striking and subtle–real wood grain, blades of grass, the chrome-plated details on classroom furniture–all are seamlessly integrated around a winsome cast of well-drawn characters….just about picture-perfect”–School Library Journal

“The title is terrifically cheeky, and Carpenter…outdoes herself in these mixed-media illustrations….Kids will be intrigued by the pictures’ playful sense of composition as well as the heroine’s brazenness….”–Publisher’s Weekly

“Our mischievous but delightful heroine is the kind of kid who makes parents and teachers old before their time, but still makes us laugh….Carpenter combines a lively pen and ink black line with naturalistic colors and digital media….The mottled look of the paper is achieved by crumpling it and filing with an emery board; Adobe Photoshop is used to rescan and manipulate the type; bits of photo collage are added for a fresh visual look. The glue she is smilingly squeezing from the bottle on the jacket has an attractive three-dimensional quality.”–Children’s Literature

Reviewed from public library copy.  Amazon Affiliate: If you click from here to Amazon and buy something, I receive a percentage of the purchase price.

Plot Summary:  Teens Keri, Janna and Sione have something in common.  All had an older brother who committed suicide.  Janna tells Keri she and summer fling Sione think it might have been murder, with a pattern of deaths stretching back for years.  They try and catch the person responsible, but when they get close, strange and dangerous things start to happen.  Will they stop the killer from striking again?  Or end up victims themselves?

Critical Analysis:  I have a hard time writing about a book like this, as I don’t want to give too much away, so here goes nothing.

I hesitate to call this novel paranormal.  For me, as of late, that term invokes visions of vampires, werewolves and ghosts in a sort of other world that might look like our world but is different.  Healey instead gives the reader something real.  Real feelings both on the part of the main characters and the secondary ones.  Grief and fear and a need to do something, to take control.   Human feelings and motives that drive actions both good and bad.  This reality adds a layer of fear and suspense and emotion to the events as they unfold.  This story, the setting, and the characters as so well realized that days after finishing the book, I can see it in my mind, playing like a movie.  (It would be an excellent teen horror movie I think.)

Readalikes:  I was reminded of Shirley Jackson’s short story, The Lottery and of Margo Lanagan’s Singing My Sister Down.

Review Excerpts:  ”[A]n intense and powerful novel that explores the effect of suicide on families….skillfully keeps her characters on an emotional roller-coaster even as they deal with physical threats. The climax delivers a gut punch that only underscores the sensitivity of the subject matter (without lessening the thrill at all).”–Publisher’s Weekly

“Healey has got a whopper of a concept here, and strong main characters to make the most of it. It is easy to identify with at least one of the trio—shattered Keri, lovely Janna, soulful Sione—and get swept up in the mystery that surrounds them as they work to protect Takeshi and Aroha, who are endearing.”–VOYA

“Told in alternating chapters by the teens, the story unfolds at an even pace, with the characters developing into fully realized and distinctly different personalities. Healey merges Maori and Samoan words and cultural influences throughout the text. A good choice for teens who prefer their fantasies mixed with more realism.”–School Library Journal

“…Healey (Guardian of the Dead, 2010) seamlessly integrates noir and fantasy tropes to explore issues of suicide, trust, sexuality, race, insecurity and free will in a way that feels fresh.”–Kirkus Reviews

Reviewed from publisher provided advanced copy.  Amazon Affiliate: If you click from here to Amazon and buy something, I receive a percentage of the purchase price.

Wow this is a busy week.  First Mystery Series Week, and now Great Books.  According to the website, “Great Books Week 2011 is honoring Great Expectations in its 150th anniversary year.”  They suggest all kinds of activities surrounding the book, including reading it online, watching the 1946 movie, and participating in their blog challenges.

I first read Great Expectations in maybe 3rd (?) grade in a paperback adaption from the Great Illustrated Classics series.  I had received a set for Christmas and felt rather grown up to read the classics.  (Nowadays I am torn–a part of me wants to say read the original!  But then, I read the adaption first and still went on to read and enjoy the full version of this and many others later.)  I remember reading the full novel in 9th grade Honors English.  It was a perfect kind of story for teenagers.  I think if I were to read it again now, I might feel differently.

Matter of fact, for anyone interested in the classics, I highly recommend finding audio versions.  I spent one summer listening to Pride and Prejudice on my mp3 player.  Austen’s writing (especially the dialogue) really came alive.  So I am off to my public library site to see if they have Great Expectations for me to download.  You can see what your library has as well.

Amazon Affiliate: If you click from here to Amazon and buy something, I receive a percentage of the purchase price.

How did I not know about this special week?  According to Chase’s Annual Events, “[m]ystery series week is a celebration of continuing characters in mystery fiction.”  I have always said I was a mystery junkie.  But really, I LOVE mystery series.  The best series deliver great characters, settings and an excellent mystery, volume after volume.  Even better is the growth of the characters and the glimpses the reader has into their lives.

Again from Chase’s: “Two-thirds of all new mysteries each year feature a series detective. The series tradition has been alive and well for more than 100 years.  Series readers today can choose from more than 20,000 adult mysteries featuring more than 4,000 continuing characters from living writers.  Mystery Series Week celebrates fictional cops, private eyes and amateur sleuths from all walks of life—solving crimes from 55 BC to the 22nd century.”

I am now and have almost always been a mystery junkie and most of those in series.  I started with the Bobbsey Twins, and then moved on to Nancy Drew, Trixie Belden and even a few Hardy Boys for good luck.  I think it was the summer after 8th grade that I read every Agatha Christie from the public library down the street.  In 10th grade my wonderful English teacher allowed us to explore adult mysteries as part of our free reading.  Thanks to her recommendations, I discovered Sue Grafton, Anne Perry, Martha Grimes, Lilian Jackson Braun, Nancy Pickard and I am sure several more I am forgetting.  I babysat for several ladies in the neighborhood, one had almost all the Jeeves and Wooster books.  Another had more contemporary series.

Nowadays, I spend a lot of time reading the newest titles, but I am always happy to discover a new series and welcome the return of an old.  Here are some that I have enjoyed recently:

Myron Bolitar series by Harlan Coben: One False Move

Hannah Swensen series by Joanne Fluke: Devil’s Food Cake Murder

Maise Dobbs series by Jacquline Winspear: Pardonable Lies

Lena Jones series by Betty Webb: Desert Run

Detective Sargeant Emmanuel Cooper series by Malla Nunn: Let the Dead Lie

Baker Street series by Michael Robertson: The Baker Street Letters

The Abbott Agency series by Veronica Heley: False Charity

Curriculum Connection:  When I was searching for more information on this week, I found this excellent lesson plan for introducing students to the mystery genre on the Scholastic website:  Exploring the Mystery Genre

The same teacher provides a great list of recommended mysteries.

Bibliography

Plot Summary:  The summer before eighth grade, and Drew is working in her mother’s cheese shop where she hangs out with surf bum Nick (who she also has a crush on.)  When she isn’t working, she plays with her pet rat and ponders her dead father’s Book of Lists.  When she met Emmett in the alley behind the shop after closing one night, she never expected the friendship and adventure that would follow.

Critical Analysis:  This quiet unassuming book is almost perfect.  A perfect picture of what it is like to have your everyday existence interrupted, to allow a stranger to become a friend, to widen the circle of your life.  It is about small events that change us and how we have to take a chance to grow and become the person we are going to be.  At least partially autobiographical in nature, Reinhardt’s mother also owned a gourmet cheese shop, it is also a perfect snapshot of atmosphere, time, and place.  I hope that librarians are preparing their booktalks using the details of rats, cheese and the Book of Lists to entice readers to pick this up.  They won’t be disappointed.

Review Excerpts: “Laced with mystery and fascinating details about Drew’s chief interests—rats and cheese—this quiet novel invites readers to share in its heroine’s deepest yearnings, changing moods, and difficult realizations. Strong imagery…will stay with readers.”–Publisher’s Weekly

“Reinhardt has written another book that will resonate with any readers learning to spread their wings and fly.”–School Library Journal

“[A]  lucid voice that is thoughtful and entertaining without being showy….There is a hint throughout of being a step removed that balances the immediacy of the events being related and the power of hindsight….Quiet yet immensely appealing.”–Kirkus Reviews

Reviewed from publisher provided advanced copy.  Amazon Affiliate: If you click from here to Amazon and buy something, I receive a percentage of the purchase price.

Plot Summary:  Coming home from a party, Jack is kidnapped by a predator.  He manages to escape telling  no one except his best friend, Connor.  Later when Connor and Jack stumble across the same man, he ends up dead.  Travelling to England to look at boarding schools, Jack arrives in London a few days before Connor.  A strange man gives him  a pair of glasses showing an alternate post-apocalyptic world where Jack is trying to save two young boys while Connor has turned into a monster.  Jack wants to look away but he can’t.  The glasses call to him, and even as he looks through them, Jack wonders what is real and what isn’t.  Is he going crazy?  Or is his world?

Critical Analysis:  Interestingly enough for me, this book feels like a natural progression following Smith’s last book, In the Path of Falling Objects.  As with Objects, there is a real feel of the west here, although in this case, it feels more like a shriveled up ghost town and less like seeking a new (better) life.)  But even more so, Objects dealt with the scary heart pounding thrill of escaping from a mad serial killer.  Here Smith takes us one step closer to the darkness–what if we escape the serial killer only to discover there are even worse things in the world, that is, if the world we are in is even real?

I had a hard time reading this book.  It was so dark and so disturbing I wasn’t sure I wanted to finish it.  And yet, the character of Jack was vulnerable and needy and I had to know what happened to him, that he came out okay in the end.  I felt his fear, at the noises, his longing, his need to pick up the glasses one more time, his loss when he would come back to the present and couldn’t remember anything that had happened in the interim.  I find the juxtaposition of elements here to be as complex as they are surreal–a mix of teenage boys being boys and the darkness that is always out beyond the edge coming closer, threatening to take over.  The ambiguity is as sweet as it is frustrating.  What is real and what is just in Jack’s head?  This may be the first book in years that gets an almost immediate reread so I can soak more of it in.

Review Excerpts:  ”This bloody and genuinely upsetting book packs an enormous emotional punch. Smith’s characters are very well developed and the ruined alternate universe they travel through is both surreal and believable.”–Publisher’s Weekly

“Graphic and nightmarish, this will find a receptive audience of older teens who are fans of Stephen King’s darkest horrors….the story is suspenseful and deeply disturbing, written with multiple layers that will have readers arguing about what the apocalyptic scenes in Marbury are really all about.”–VOYA

“This is a haunting psychological drama, told in very adult language and descriptions that nonetheless is impossible to put down. Not for the fainthearted or the young, this is an incredibly well written story of emotional demons that is hard to forget.”–Children’s Literature

“An engrossing horror/fantasy hybrid, this page-turner will be best appreciated by those with a taste for ambiguous endings….Nightmarish imagery is chillingly effective, and the pacing superbly builds suspense.”–Kirkus Reviews

“This title will keep readers enthralled with its well-developed characters and unique plot…The novel is not an easy read, but it is one that will keep teens hooked….”–School Library Journal

“Mixing a trauma reckoning with dark, apocalyptic fantasy and notes of psychological horror, this commandeering novel’s multiplicity is elusively complex yet never complicated: although the many gut-quivering story elements are not clearly defined, they always speak to each other, and Smith wisely leaves much up to the reader.”–Booklist

Reviewed from publisher provided advanced copy.  Amazon Affiliate: If you click from here to Amazon and buy something, I receive a percentage of the purchase price.

Bibliography

Plot Summary:  Paisley lives to play the drums, and sneaks away every day after school to play with a country rock band in her uncle’s airplane hangar.  They have hopes of playing in Austin at Texaspolooza and getting out of their small town.  When the band gets a new handsome lead singer, Gabe, Paisley tries not to faill for him and fails.  Will her feelings for him get in the way of her music?

Critical Analysis:  The Sweetheart of Prosper County, Alexander’s first book, resonated with me on a very personal level.  I knew those characters, had been at that school, in that town and those stores.  Paradise is a different kind of book–it feels more gritty and real and more like Texas to me.  (It reminds me quite a bit of the television show, Friday Night Lights, another favorite.)  While the title of the book is in reference to the lead singer, Gabe, who is from Paradise, TX, this book belongs to Paisley.  Her dreams, schemes, determination, longings, passions, feelings leap off the pages.  Paisley doesn’t share her dream with her family, her father and sister might be supportive, but her mother doesn’t see playing in a band as something to aspire to, as a way of living.  She loves both her daughters and wants for them more than she had, but doesn’t see that they need to find their own  way.  A key theme throughout the novel is that love is hard, on many levels.  Gabe wants more than Paisley can give him right now, the band’s song writer loves from afar.  Paisley’s dad knows that neither of his daughters are happy but loves his wife too much to interfere.  This story swept me away and then the bittersweet hope-filled ending got me.  Girls looking for a first romance will love this book, as will anyone, musician or not, who ever had a dream to be something more.  I am looking forward to Alexander’s next book.

Readalikes:  Although I have not read it in years, this book reminded me of Valerie Hobbes’ How Far Would You Have Gotten If I Hadn’t Called You Back? another emotionally driven teen romance.

Review Excerpts:  “Alexander’s simmering plot is equally driven by a complex story and multiple, complex characters.”—School Library Journal

“A tame romance, alternately captivating and clichéd, yet effective in portraying a determined teen driven by the music in her soul.”–Kirkus Reviews

Reviewed from author provided advanced copy.  (Thank you Jill for remembering me!)  Amazon Affiliate: If you click from here to Amazon and buy something, I receive a percentage of the purchase price.