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In: Ideas You Can Use, Middle Grade Reviews, Young Adult Book Reviews
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Jade and I spent our entire dinner conversation on Saturday night talking about our memories of being bullied as kids, bullying in general, and how adults “bully”.  I had just finished Teen Ink’s collection of essays, Bullying Under Attack, and was so moved by the essays contained within that I had to share my reactions with him.   The book did exactly what it was meant to do:  foster a meaningful, insightful, and thought-provoking conversation about people’s use and abuse of power, the three roles involved in that power-play and the short and long term consequences of bullying on everyone involved.  While it was “easier”Read More →

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What if hex lessons could empower a bully’s victim to enact revenge?  What if we could send out psychic energy as an agent of change?  These are questions Mariah Fredericks explores in her book Season of the Witch.  The novel features Antonia Thurman, a sixteen year old junior who wants to be elegant, fiercely smart, and strong but still funny and nice.  Instead, she is the target of bully Chloe Nachmias, a petite and perfect, every-part-ideal beauty who causes others to feel clumsy and insignificant.  Chloe and her minions, Zeena and Isabelle, make Slam the Slut everyone’s favorite game, with Toni the target since sheRead More →

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A reader who enjoyed Lauren Morrill’s debut novel, Meant to Be, or who appreciates books like Sarah Dessen’s Along for the Ride should find pleasure in Morrill’s latest book, Being Sloane Jacobs.  Despite the plot similarities, this book pushes beyond girl drama and romance, skating its way into the sports genre—with a couple of richly descriptive scenes where Sloane Emily and Sloane Devon compare gross injuries. The skating rink is Sloane Emily Jacobs’ childhood home, but when life in D.C. begins to spin out of control, the figure skating rink becomes another arena where Seej—as she is called by her brother James—feels judged and whereRead More →

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I honestly don’t know how she does it. Every A.S. King book I read grabs me by the throat, reaches down into my heart, and completely engulfs me in a powerfully told, unflinchingly portrayed, ultimately redemptive story of a teenager on the edge of his or her own particular abyss.  King skillfully, lovingly, and realistically creates well-rounded young people whose lives are pretty crappy when the story opens but through their own choices, dogged perseverance, and sometimes a little help from a friend or an adult with a clue, rise above the cards that were dealt to them and come brilliantly, if not a littleRead More →

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In: Action & Adventure, Action & Adventure (YA), Middle Grade Reviews, Mystery & Suspense, Mystery & Suspense (YA), Sci Fi & Fantasy, Sci-Fi & Fantasy (YA), Young Adult Book Reviews
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More questions than answers. At the end of the book, that’s what I’m left with.  Who are SYLO? What is The Ruby?  What are those strange flying ships? Why is Pemberwick Island under quarantine? Who are all the people suddenly on the island?  What do Tucker’s parents know that they aren’t telling him?  What happened on the mainland?  Is there anyone Tucker can trust? Every single time you think you’ve figured something out, another mystery appears, confounding, frustrating, and driving you on in the vain hope that you can have at least one answer before the end.  But it is not to be.  Both theRead More →

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As proven time and time again, Mike Lupica has the talent to get the reader right into the action: whether it’s on the court, on the diamond, or on the fifty yard line, there’s a visceral, in-the-moment, hard-hitting feeling to all of Lupica’s sports-action sequences.  The pulse-pounding, bone-crunching, split-second action on the football field in QB 1 is yet another example of how skillfully Lupica can make a reader (even a girl who’s never touched a football) feel what it’s like to be the quarterback, in the pocket, waiting for an opening, dodging a hefty tackler, hoping to make the down and move the teamRead More →

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Sonya Sones‘ latest verse novel, To Be Perfectly Honest, tells the story of 15 year old Colette’s summer in San Luis Obispo, babysitting her 7 year old brother Will, while her utterly famous mother films yet another Hollywood blockbuster.  Having been forced to give up her planned summer trip to Paris to be exiled in nowhere, California, Colette is bitter, angry, and pouting.  Life couldn’t be worse as day after day of boredom looms ahead of her with nothing to look forward to and no one her own age to hang with.  But when she and Will run into a beautiful stranger with a motorcycle,Read More →

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At the core of its plot, Erased by Jennifer Rush features psychological and genetic engineering that erases important memories and plants false ones in the void.  Four of the experimental group teens manage to escape the Branch lab.  Anna, unable to let go of the past, is on the run with loyal and noble Sam, the irritatingly adorable Cas, and Nick, “a shark masquerading as a panther” (19).  The Branch has been using biotechnology to turn teens into weaponry, and the four have received genetic alterations and programming to turn them into a team of assassins, with Anna as the leader. Hunted by the Branch,Read More →

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In: On the Edge, Realistic Fiction (YA), Young Adult Book Reviews
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Getting out from under the intense weight on my chest after reading Matthew Quick‘s Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock has taken some time.  I felt pulled down into a deep, dark hole, all alone with only my thoughts about the futility of life, the lack of care or concern for myself or others, and a resigned sense of defeat in the face of an untenable future.  The slope down into Leonard’s depression is slippery and quick and getting back out isn’t easy work.  Which is the long way of saying that in Leonard Peacock Quick has expertly captured and painfully portrayed depression, anger, and isolation atRead More →