Author: Aimee Bender
Published: Anchor Books, 2010
292 pages
IIIIIIIIIIIIIII'M BAAAAAACKKKK!!! After a long summer of reading way more books than is normal, I am going to start tending to my blog again. I'm going to start with this one because I really want someone else to read it.
This book is written from the perspective of Rose Edelstein, a very average girl with the very above-average ability to taste emotions in food. She discovers her ability rather harshly, after biting into her birthday cake and tasting her mother's contempt, dissatisfaction with her marriage, and overall sadness (hence, the title). Rose continues to experiment with different types of food, and the book moves quickly over the span of about 15 years, during which time Rose never really does anything interesting or noteworthy, except for tasting her mother's affair.
The strangest part about this book is Rose's brother Joseph, who Rose looks up to as a kind of genius. Rose starts to notice he disappears every now and then, and when he reappears he is totally exhausted, and nobody knows why. When he goes away to college, he becomes extremely withdrawn and inaccessible. Then one day, Rose goes to check on him and she walks into his apartment and sees......
Sorry, I can't tell you what she sees because I'm dying for someone else to read this book so they can tell me what the hell they think goes on. Because I still haven't figured it out.
I don't know what it was about this book that made me unable to put it down. It seemed so average and mundane, but I was enthralled. I can't say it any better than the San Francisco Chronicle reviewer who said, "Few writers are as adept as Bender at mingling magical elements so seamlessly with the ordinary." That's exactly what it was. It was a realistic portrait of a slightly strained family with the tiniest fantastical elements that made it a mystery, but still familiar and comfortable.
I am definitely going to see what else Aimee Bender has to offer. Also, first person to read this book and tell me what they think gets a batch of cookies!
Author: Paolo Bacigalupi
Published: 2010, Little, Brown and Company
323 pages
Take a look at those medals on the front cover of this book! The gold one is the Michael L. Printz Award for Excellence in Young Adult Literature. The silver one signifies that it was a finalist for the National Book Award. I first mentioned this book in my post about the ALA Youth Media Award Winners, and I was really excited to see what it had to offer.... Sooo let's take a look...
The book takes place in the future in the American Gulf Coast region, where all the old oil tankers of today have been stranded on the shoreline and are only valuable for their metal innards. Nailer, a teenage boy who works for a particularly harsh boss, spends his days crawling through the ducts of the oil tankers scavenging for copper wiring and his nights worrying about whether he will make it through the night with his drug-addicted, murderous father.
After a rough storm one night, Nailer discovers wreckage from one of the beautiful, expensive sailboats he always admires out on the horizon. In the wreckage is an extremely rich girl, and Nailer must make the decision to simply give her up to his father and the rest of the violent ship breakers or try to protect her. If he didn't try to protect her there wouldn't be much of a plot, so I can tell you now that Nailer runs away with her to "the Orleans," which has been decimated by a series of hurricanes, so she can find her rich family. Nailer and the girl are bombarded with life-threatening obstacles and adventures in the course of their journey, and that is pretty much the whole book.
To be honest, I really expected more from a book that received sooo much praise from the literary community. I was largely unimpressed by the characterization and the plot. The most impressive part was the setting, with Bacigalupi painting such a clear and imaginative (but still semi-believable) future that it was hard not to get sucked in. On the other hand, I wish he went into more depth about some of the finer details. There is something called "the Life Cult," for instance, mentioned several times in the book that he just never really explains. At first I thought he was just trying to keep it mysterious, but then it just got annoying.
I think this book would make an incredible movie, and when it's made into one in the near future, you can all thank me for introducing you to it first. The imagery is fantastic and I actually felt as dirty and sweaty as Nailer when I was reading about him crawling through the ducts of an old tanker. That also could have been the 110 degree weather we've been having, but I'll give Bacigalupi the credit.
P.S. Don't read it. Wait for the movie.
Author: Lauren Oliver
Published: 2010, Harper
470 pages
Yes, another book on this blog that features death as the central theme. I seriously considered becoming a mortician after reading a short story during my freshman English class at Penn State that was actually meant to be horrifying. Everyone else was appropriately horrified, but I went right back to my dorm and started Googling what kind of educational background you need to become a mortician. Turns out, it's not much, and I probably should have pursued it because, unlike libraries, the business of death is, not surprisingly, "Recession-proof."
Enough about my obsession with death, though, and onto the purpose of this blog! Before I Fall was named on YALSA's 2011 Best Fiction for Young Adults List, which is another one of those lists that I won't shut up about. Written from Sam Kingston's first person point of view, the narrative starts out with a normal day in the life of a popular high school girl. She wakes up on February 12, is snotty to her family, puts on a slutty outfit to match her 3 best friends, goes to school and is snotty to everyone there, gets drunk, goes to a party, is snotty again, leaves the party... and that's where it gets interesting.
In the car on the way home, Sam's best friend/drunk driver Lindsay sees a flash of white and swerves into a tree, killing Sam. And then Sam wakes up, and it's February 12 again. For the next 400 pages, Sam has the opportunity to relive her last day seven times, each day discovering something new about the people who are closest to her as well as the people she was always surrounded by but never thought were worth her time.
The biggest complaint most people about this book is that Sam and her friends are not very likable characters. It's definitely true that they're snotty, stuck-up, spoiled little brats who think a little too highly of themselves, but in the end they're not totally evil and they do have many redeeming qualities. I also like that Oliver took the perspective of a "popular girl," which is pretty rare in YA literature, especially in these more serious, non-Gossip Girl books that typically come from the perspective of social outcasts (think Hannah Baker and Melinda Sordino).
In all, the book is entirely too long and the ending is kind of disappointing. There are some interesting questions raised throughout the book, but they're easy to miss among the nearly 500 pages of competing text. Entertaining, yes, but too repetitive for me to recommend. The fact that Lauren Oliver got me to read 500 pages of the same day over and over certainly says something about her writing style, though, so I won't write her off completely.
Author: David R. Dow
Published: 2011, Twelve
261 pages
Ah, the death penalty. For me, you can't go wrong with a book about the death penalty, and you really can't go wrong with a book about the death penalty in Texas (I've read at least three). I've always been really torn on the issue of capital punishment. While my fellow Republicans are known for their "Eye for an eye!" attitude, I've always struggled to embrace that position.
I doubt anyone (besides judges, defenders, prosecutors, and death row inmates) thinks about the death penalty as much as I do, but no matter where you think you stand on the issue, Dow, a public defender in Texas who spends his life defending death row inmates, will force you to take a closer look at your position. In this memoir Dow recounts some of the more powerful cases he's encountered, the most powerful being that of a man so obviously innocent that even the prison guards and the warden cry at his execution.
The innocents are a rarity, for sure, and Dow knows that most of his clients are guilty. What makes this book interesting, though, is that Dow is 100% anti-death penalty, guilty or innocent. Most people don't have the balls to say that the guilty don't deserve the death penalty, but Dow stands firm on his position even when he is discussing the gruesome details of a murder committed by one of his clients. I'm not saying this is my position, or that it should be anyone's for that matter, but Dow's integrity is admirable and should not be overlooked.
Dow's writing style is gritty and raw. He doesn't use quotation marks, which can get really confusing at times, but the book has a stream-of-consciousness style that made it easy to feel his frustration, his anger, his hope, and his doubt. I could not put this book down. I felt personal connections to him, his family, even his murderous clients. Dow forces you to confront the really tough issues surrounding the death penalty and never sounds too preachy in the process.
Another really cool thing about this book is the publishing house. Called "Twelve" because they publish only twelve books a year (one per month), they claim to "publish the singular book, by authors who have a unique perspective and compelling authority." Dow certainly has both of those things, and I can't wait to see what else this publishing house has to offer.
I just want everyone to know that I have neither dropped off the face of the earth nor stopped reading. I just got a new job (no, not in a library) and that has been keeping me pretty busy; but mostly I've just been dabbling in non-blog-worthy reading.
Examples 1 and 2: I am a huge science nerd, or at least I try to be. Michio Kaku is always on the History Channel or the Science Channel, and I like to pretend I'm smart enough to read his books, a theory I have recently dismissed on the grounds that it has taken me over 2 months to get through two of his most basic books -- Physics of the Impossible and Physics of the Future. Anybody interested in hearing about those, read the Amazon reviews because after 2 months with them, I still don't understand them well enough to blog about them.
Examples 3 and 4: The remainder of The Hunger Games trilogy. I've been finishing up the second two of Suzanne Collins's series, and while I usually reserve this blog for only the first of a series, I can't help but say I was a little disappointed in the second two. They were good, but not fantastic. Maybe my expectations were just too high after the first book, but the second two read more like screenplays than novels. I guess that's fine, though, because THE FIRST MOVIE IS COMING OUT IN 2012! I am beyond excited. Anybody who has read these books knows that they are perfect for movie-making, and I hope they pull off a good adaptation. So go out and read it before the movie comes out!
Anyway, I'm going to start reading more blog-worthy (i.e. non-science/things I can actually understand) books, and this blog will continue on its way, as if this 2-month absence never even happened. Now, seriously, go read The Hunger Games.
Author: Emma Donoghue
Published: 2010, Little, Brown and Company
336 pages
Jack has lived all five years of his life in "Room" with Ma. He knows the four walls of Room and all the furniture inside and nothing else. The only glimpse he gets of the outside world comes from the TV he is allowed to watch for an hour a day, but Ma tells him that most of the things he sees on the TV (other children, ice cream, potato chips) are just pretend. And sometimes at night, while Jack is hiding in Wardrobe, he gets a whiff of fresh air when Old Nick types in the code that opens Door and enters Room.
When Old Nick is in Room, Ma is not herself, but Jack busies himself by counting the number of times Bed creaks as he lies in Wardrobe. On the mornings after Old Nick's visits, sometimes Ma has spots on her neck and a hoarse voice, but they go right along with their day as usual. One day Jack's world is turned upside-down when Ma reveals that she has been lying to him for his whole life, and that the things he sees on TV actually do exist outside of Room.
I don't want to give too much away, because this is a book I feel many of you might actually go out and read yourselves, but I will say that the reason Jack and Ma are in Room is far too dark for innocent Jack to comprehend. Writing from his perspective, Donoghue has done a great job of keeping the reader in the dark but still intrigued. If you still aren't convinced, watch this creepy video from Amazon.
Another thing I'll say about this book is that I think the characters are extremely well developed. Jack's character is a bit contradictory at times, in that sometimes he cannot understand a simple concept or word and other times he is making extremely mature observations and conclusions. But besides those minor slip-ups, Jack is a good character. Sometimes he hates Ma, and sometimes he loves her. He's a good kid, but not too good. Ma is another one who's totally believable. She's not a saint -- sometimes she loses her patience with Jack, sometimes she stays in Bed for an entire day -- but she's still likable. Donoghue proves that characters can have flaws and still be likable, and I wish other authors would follow her lead.
This book won an Alex Award, which doesn't actually mean that much in the literary world, but it's another one of those lists I recommended for finding good books. I also recommend not reading any of the reviews unless you want to know the ending, which I know most of you will probably do anyway. One person I know for sure will do this is my own Ma, who, somewhere in a basement, is sitting at a computer and clicking "Add to Cart" on her Amazon account right this minute. And I also know that as soon as my Ma gets her copy in the mail, she will proceed right to the last page to see how it ends. So much for keeping it mysterious!
Author: Jay Asher
Published: 2007, Penguin
288 pages
Clay Jensen receives a shoebox-size package containing seven cassette tapes, numbered 1-13. When he puts the first one in, he hears the voice of Hannah Baker, his classmate who recently committed suicide. On the first tape, Hannah makes the chilling statement, "...I'm about to tell you the story of my life. More specifically, why my life ended. And if you're listening to these tapes, you're one of the reasons why."
Each person mentioned on the tapes is required to send the package to the next person on the list, until Hannah's story has made it to all the people she blames for her suicide, 13 in all. The book is written from Clay's point of view, as he follows Hannah's direction on a morbid tour of his town, discovering all the secrets Hannah and his 12 other fellow "reasons" kept from each other.
I have mixed feelings about this book, mostly because I think the two main characters (Hannah and Clay) are one-sided and not totally likable. Hannah is a dramatic complainer who claims to have been screaming out for help that she just never got. I knew plenty of people in high school who had it much worse than Hannah, so I found it difficult to feel sorry for her. Especially when she used her snotty, demeaning tone on the tapes.
Clay, on the other hand, is too perfect. I'm still not sure why he made it to Hannah's list. I think the author wanted Clay to be lovable so he gave Clay the most distant connection to Hannah's suicide. The book would have had much more depth had the narrative been from the point of view of someone who actually played a larger part in Hannah's depression and suicide. I would have liked to see the softer side of one of those people and be forced to reconcile the soft side with the negative side Hannah reveals on her tapes.
Those problems aside, this is a quick, entertaining read that I would recommend to anybody who shares my taste for morbid, depressing books. If you really want to up the morbidity factor, I recommend going on Jay Asher's website and watching the YouTube videos of the creepy tapes actually being played on a little cassette player.
Last week it went public that this book was picked up by Universal to be made into a movie, with Selena Gomez as Hannah. I'll definitely be looking forward to that one!
Author: Laurie Halse Anderson
Published: 1999, Penguin
198 pages
I've been wanting to read Speak for a while now for a couple reasons. Number one reason: it is often acclaimed as one of the most influential YA books of our time and it has a surprising number of awards under its belt to back that up (including a Printz Honor as well as being a finalist for the National Book Award). Number two reason: I really enjoyed Prom, also by Laurie Halse Anderson, and I wanted to see how she successfully pulled off two books with such different tones (Prom is light and humorous, and Speak is notoriously heavy).
The narrator is Melinda Sordino, a girl who begins her freshman year of high school as a total outcast. Through the narrative we learn that she wasn't always a complete outcast, but a traumatic event toward the end of summer turns her into a virtual mute and makes her friends abandon her. There is very little dialogue, as Melinda very rarely talks, and Anderson did an interesting job of creating a stream of consciousness writing style, so I felt like I was inside Melinda's head as she tried to navigate through the usual freshman year conflicts (where to sit at lunch, being stopped in the halls without a hall pass, cliques, report card woes, etc.) as well as her own obvious internal strife.
Melinda is clearly depressed and dejected, her only real outlet for expression being her art class. About halfway through the book I started to wonder if I was ever going to find out what happened to her that so dramatically changed her life. There are little hints throughout the book, and you do finally find out what went so wrong over the summer, though I won't say it here. I have to say that I wish the revelation was a little more surprising, but I liked that it wasn't over-dramatized. What comes after the revelation is a bit more surprising, almost to the point of being unbelievable, and that's the only aspect of this book that I didn't really love.
As it turns out, I found the tones of Prom and Speak to be very similar. Anderson maintains her signature style of short chapters, subtle humor, and sarcastic observations of high school life. The huge difference between the two books is that the subject matter is much more intense in Speak, so despite the occasional humor, it never breaks into the realm of "lighthearted" or "fun." I've only read two books by Laurie Halse Anderson, but I would feel fully confident picking up another one of her books any time I was looking for something to read. It's hard to put her books down, and she has a unique and honest perspective that I really appreciate.
I decided to put an end to my "week-long series of posts" because I noticed my page views decreased dramatically. I guess it was just too much Julie in one week. That's fine, though, and because I want to produce a blog that you actually want to read, I will avoid giving so many negative reviews in a row and I am going to add a "recommended" tag to all the books I liked, to make it easier for you to find a bunch of them at once.
Now I want to move on to what this post is actually about: the ALA 2011 Youth Media Award Winners, announced earlier this week. Most of the books featured on this blog are young adult or "YA" books, which means the intended age group is about 12-18 years old. The reason I'm so interested in these books is because they have experienced a surge in popularity among all age groups in recent years (think Twilight and Harry Potter), and I think that means there is something special about them that really strikes a chord with many people. I also read many books intended for a slightly younger audience, although I have not blogged about many of them because I think they have a more limited audience.
Based on my interest in these two types of books, it shouldn't come as a surprise that the two ALA awards I am most interested in are the John Newbery Medal and the Michael L. Printz Award. So here are the winners and honorees of my two favorite ALA awards:
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| 2011 Newbery Winner |
Newbery Winner "for the most outstanding contribution to children’s literature": Moon Over Manifest by Claire Vanderpool
Newbery Honors: Turtle in Paradise by Jennifer L. Holm; Heart of a Samurai by Margi Preus; Dark Emperor and Other Poems of the Night by Joyce Sidman; One Crazy Summer by Rita Williams-Garcia
I just want to quickly mention how relieved I am that The Dreamer was not awarded the Newbery or even a Newbery Honor. It was awarded, however, the Pura Belpré Award for "honoring a Latino writer whose children's books best portray, affirm and celebrate the Latino cultural experience."
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| 2011 Printz Winner |
Printz Winner "for excellence in literature written for young adults": Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi
Printz Honors: Stolen by Lucy Christopher; Please Ignore Vera Dietz by A.S. King; Revolver by Marcus Sedgwick; Nothing by Janne Teller
I realize it's very "librarian" of me to push award-winners, but there really is something to the award process and if you're looking for something good to read and don't have time to browse, these lists are usually a pretty safe place to start. Another great list that may be a little less prestigious but may be more interesting for my readers, is the list of Alex Awards "for the best 10 adult books that appeal to teen audiences."
Take a closer look at some of these lists and I guarantee you will find at least a couple books that interest you. I'm most excited to read Ship Breaker and Nothing, but you can probably expect to see most, if not all, of these books on here eventually.
Author: Robert Cormier
Published: 2001, Delacorte
154 pages
I wanted to read another book by Cormier because I was largely unimpressed by his most famous work, The Chocolate War, and I wanted to give him another chance before writing him off. I chose this one because I figured if I didn't like it, it was only 154 pages of my time. The writing style that I found so gripping in The Chocolate War, combined with a story line that contained at least some realistic characters made this a much more enjoyable read for me.
The majority of the book takes place inside a small police interrogation room, where master interrogator Trent grills the introverted and clearly innocent 12-year-old Jason about the recent murder of Jason's 7-year-old friend Alicia. We know Jason is innocent from the outset of the story and Trent quickly determines that for himself as well, but what Trent also knows is that he is fully capable of forcing a confession out of this vulnerable young boy. And with a job advancement within his reach, Trent knows that getting a confession in such a high profile murder case would greatly enhance his standing with the department as well as local political officials.
It was wildly frustrating to see Jason, a shy boy who just wants to give the "right" answer and help out, be completely taken advantage of and backed into a corner. In this respect, Trent is a character a lot like the overwhelmingly evil characters Cormier created in The Chocolate War; but, unlike them, Trent does still have some redeeming qualities. Cormier must have really done his research before writing this book, because it is chock-full of interesting facts about body language, patterns of speech, and interrogation techniques.
With a semi-surprise ending and Cormier's intense and suspenseful writing style, this one was definitely a win for me. I will definitely re-read it if I ever plan on committing a heinous crime and need some tips about how to behave in an interrogation room. Besides that, I think I'll branch out a bit in Cormier-Land because I just read about a bunch of his other books and they seem to have more in common with this one (murder, criminals, and violence) than The Chocolate War (prep school, boys, and priests).
Author: Laurie Halse Anderson
Published: 2005, Viking
224 pages
So this was supposed to be a "week-long series of posts," but then I fell asleep around 9 last night and fell behind on the second day. Whoops! Let's see if I can catch up. This is not a book I would normally pick up myself, because the cover makes it look like pure chick lit. I don't have a problem with chick lit, but it's just not my favorite style. I had to read this book for a class and I'm glad I did because it turned out to be a really entertaining and worthwhile read.
Ashley, a 17-year-old senior in a Philadelphia high school, comes from a lower-middle-class family. She's an average teenager with a pretty large group of girlfriends and one best friend Natalia. Natalia is on the prom committee and completely obsessed with everything "prom." Ashley doesn't even plan on going to prom, and has already mostly disengaged herself from high school, focusing most of her energy on her embarrassing job, moving in with her slacker boyfriend T.J., and life after high school. When a math teacher steals the prom money and Natalia finds herself somewhat incapacitated, Ashley ends up at the heart of the prom committee, dealing with issues she didn't even think she cared about.
This book didn't completely blow my mind, maybe because the subject matter is light and "chick-lit-ish," but I definitely got some good laughs out of it. Both Ashley's and Natalia's families are quirky and hilarious, and I really enjoyed Anderson's honest portrayal of high school and family life. It is Ashley's normalcy that makes her a completely refreshing YA character. She's not extremely rich or poor, like so many characters in YA literature. She doesn't go to boarding school, and her parents and siblings are a constant presence in her life, another (realistic) characteristic that sets her apart from many YA characters. Additionally, Anderson's writing style is engaging and hard to put down. The chapters are short, and the dialogue is nicely done.
Laurie Halse Anderson's debut novel, Speak, was a finalist for the National Book Award and also received a Printz Award Honor, quickly establishing her as one of the most influential YA authors of our time. I haven't read Speak yet, but from what I've heard it has very heavy subject matter (often described as "gritty"), and I'm interested to see how it contrasts with this lighthearted and mostly-upbeat story. The fact that Anderson was able to pull off both styles successfully really "speaks" (ha!) to her versatility as an author.
Author: Gayle Forman
Published: 2009, Dutton
199 pages
In honor of my cousin Jaclyn, who recently asked for a book recommendation in her Facebook status because apparently I don't give enough positive reviews in this blog, I am doing a week-long series of posts about books that I do recommend. Don't worry, everybody, I have an arsenal of recommendations up my sleeve; I've just been holding back to keep you all on your toes. The time has come, though, and I begin with this sweet, easy read by Gayle Forman.
This book is written from the first-person perspective of 17-year-old Mia. On a snow day, she and her very tight-knit family (Mom, Dad, brother Teddy) decide to take a little road trip that ends in a fatal accident for everyone in the family but Mia. For the majority of the book, Mia is in a coma but her conscious self is wandering around the hospital, watching her remaining family, friends, and doctors and nurses handle the situation.
The narration alternates between stories of Mia's almost-perfect former family life and her current state of watching herself struggle to hold onto life on a hospital bed. At some point, she realizes that she has the power to decide whether she "stays" or dies (hence the title: "If I Stay"). Mia goes back and forth between not wanting to continue living because she doesn't want to be an orphan and also because it is "easier to die" and wanting to continue living because she has so many close loved ones (including an amazing, but still believable, boyfriend as well as a great best friend) and life ahead of her.
Mia's family is quirky and totally lovable and believable. Her parents are former punk rockers who give her a lot of freedom and a lot of love. Her boyfriend is a punk rocker, too, and they have a great (but not too-perfect; they have many real-life relationship conflicts) relationship that I really appreciated. In the stories sprinkled throughout the narrative, Mia describes her perception of her place among all these characters, and the picture Forman paints is both honest and realistic. Mia doesn't feel like she totally fits in because she's a concert cellist and all her loved ones play rock instruments. She's not part of the popular crowd in school, but she's fine having just one really good friend. In the end, she is weighing her options and trying to figure out if she has a place in a world without her immediate family.
Forman raises some interesting questions about life and death, but she also raises some good questions about family. Is your family limited to the one you're born into, or can it also include the people you've chosen to surround yourself with? Who are you without your family? Do you have the same identity if the people who have known you the longest are suddenly gone?
Mia's family reminded me of my own freakishly close family, and maybe that's what I liked about this book so much. I don't know who I'd be without my crazy family, even if they do sometimes insult me by looking elsewhere for book recommendations.
