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In Arizona Grand Canyon Reader Award 2010 Nominee The Rules of Survival , Nancy Werlin tackles the topic of child abuse.  18-year-old Matt writes a letter to his youngest sister, Emmy, in an effort to come to terms with the childhood of fear they lived at the hands of their unpredictable, insane mother.  Matt insists that “fear isn’t actually a bad thing . . . . It warns you to pay attention, because you’re in danger. It tells you to do something, to act, to save yourself.”  Throughout the short, riveting chapters, Matt recounts his memories of growing up, and his terror is palpable, but so is hisRead More →

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Laurie Halse Anderson’s latest novel for young adults, Wintergirls, due out in March 2009, is the haunting, gut-wrenching story of 18 year old Lia who is losing her battle with the demons of anorexia.   Her estranged best friend Cassie has died suddenly, and Lia is lost in a world of her own making as she is failing to cope with her family life, school, and Cassie’s death. Lia’s relationships with everyone around her – mother, father, stepmother, sister, therapist, guy she meets at hotel where Cassie died – take the back seat to the ghosts that plague her. Their appeals to her to eat, to save herself, fall on ears thatRead More →

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Simone Elkeles’ latest novel, Perfect Chemistry, is loosely based on a suburb near her home where 2 distinct neighborhoods share a high school.  In this novel, a perfect teenager, Brittany, with a perfect life expects a perfect senior year.  Things aren’t going to work out that way, however, when her chemistry partner is none other than the toughest Latino gang-banger in school, Alex Fuentes.  Immediately Brittany and Alex clash, as do the 2 distinct worlds that are forced to co-exist at this suburban Chicago high school. What happens throughout their senior year is that Brittany and Alex both come to realize that the other isRead More →

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In Deadville, the latest YA novel by Ron Koertge, we meet Ryan.  He’s been avoiding life, primarily by smoking pot and isolating himself with his iPod, since his younger sister died of cancer two years ago. But when Charlotte Silano — a gorgeous, popular senior way out of his league — has a riding accident and falls into a coma, Ryan finds himself drawn to her hospital room almost every day, long after her friends stop coming around.  And while he visits Charlotte, Ryan slowly starts to emerge from his own isolation – he reconnects with his parents, stops smoking pot, works out a gym, and evenRead More →

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Sometimes books keep me up at night – not usually because I stay up into the wee hours just to finish them (I like my 8 hours of slumber) – but because thoughts, ideas and reactions to what I’ve read the day before keep rolling around in my mind, forcing me down rabbit holes or through mazes that I hadn’t expected. Jay Asher’s debut YA novel, Thirteen Reasons Why, did that to me last week.  In a series of cassette tape recordings, Hannah Baker reveals the web of reasons, the snowball effect, about why she has chosen to end her own life.  The listener, ClayRead More →

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Living Dead Girlby Elizabeth Scott is a disturbing book.  Alice was abducted by Ray when she was 10 and has been living as his child sexual slave for the last 5 years.  She has been beaten and raped and reminded daily that if she tries to escape, Ray will find her and will return to her childhood home and murder her parents.  Now that she is 15, Alice knows that Ray is tiring of her, because she cannot stay a girl-child forever, and soon he will kill her as he did to the Alice he had before her.  But then he makes an unusual request – AliceRead More →

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Impossible  by Nancy Werlin stands on a very interesting plot, forces you to feel emotion and makes the reader try to think about possible solutions.  Even though the recommended reader age starts at 12 years, or 6th grade, I would never recommend this book to anyone younger than a mature 7th grader.  Some of the main topics include rape, teenage pregnancy, mental illness, love and marriage.  They are presented in a mature way.  The rape is not described, but it is always there.  Also, Lucy talks very bluntly about her feelings toward her rapist.    It seems weird to say this, but Impossible also had aRead More →

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Right Behind You, by Gail Giles, tells the story of Kip, who when he was nine years old, he set his seven-year-old neighbor on fire because he was jealous of the baseball glove the boy received for his birthday. Three days later the boy died and Kip was committed to a facility for criminally insane juveniles, where he spends the next four years in rehabilitation. At the age of 14, Kip is released and moves with his father and stepmother to a new town, with a new name, to begin a new life. But the past is not so far behind and Kip, now knownRead More →

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Before I Die by Jenny Downham is sharp, poignant, sometimes funny and sometimes heartbreaking story about 16-year old Tessa, a young woman living in London under the heavy veil of terminal lukemia. With just months left to live she makes a list on the wall behind her bed of the things she must experience before her life ends.  Sex, drugs, learning to drive and falling in love are just some of the things she must do to really live life.  While she’s free of the constraints of normal life to pursue her list, she is also constantly dogged by pain, exhaustion, sickness and her deteriorating condition. While the premise has theRead More →