teens – Peaceful Reader

Interesting YA titles

I finished both of these in September and what ties them together is love and the power of acceptance; something most humans desire. One uses that power and the other makes it into a curable disease.

The List by Siobhan Vivian:

Filled with the craziness of high school it brought back memories of how BAD it can be. I thought it said a lot though for all that high school student’s experience-being popular is weird and being unpopular is just as weird. If only all high school students could learn to be themselves; a very difficult concept because most teens have yet to truly find themselves as it often takes years to figure it all out.

Mount Washington H.S. has this tradition of a published list plastered all over the walls right before homecoming. The list shares the prettiest and the ugliest female student in each class. At any level it is difficult to appear on either side of the list; yet both sides display negative behavior because they are on the list.

Siobhan Vivian relays the stories of all eight young women affected by the list and we learn just how being a member of this small group changes them. In order to ignore the list you’d have to be a very mighty girl! I was not a brave soul in high school and would have found it heart-breaking to be even mentioned. Even the young women chosen for the pretties side struggle with how to keep up with the image they think every one expects. My first thoughts were that the list must be written by a guy or a group of guys. The ending left me shaking my head and praying for a second women’s movement!

A quote:

She lifts her chin a few degrees. ‘I’ve decided not to take a shower for a whole week.’

‘For real?’

‘Yup,’ she says, making the p pop. ‘I’m not showering, I’m not brushing my teeth, putting on deodorant, anything. I’m wearing these same clothes, not just the shirt, but the jeans, the socks, the underwear, the bra. My last shower was on Sunday night, before I went over to your house.’ She folds her arms. ‘I won’t participate in any kind of hygiene until Saturday night.’ It feels good to say her plan out loud. Now there can be no backing out.

‘What’s on Saturday night?’

‘The homecoming dance.’ It sounds so utterly ridiculous, but she keeps a straight face. ‘I’m going as smelly and disgusting as I can possibly make myself, dressed in these clothes.’

Milo laughs and laughs, but when Sarah doesn’t join, he stops. “Wait. You’re not serious.’

‘I am.’

‘Why are you letting that stupid list get to you? You hate the girls at this school, obviously for good reason. And now you want to show up at their dumb dance? This isn’t like you at all.’ (101)

Even the young women chosen for the pretties side struggle with how to keep up with the image they think every one expects. The ending left me baffled and praying for a second women’s movement!

Delirium by Lauren Oliver (2011):

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This is a glorious look at a future world where love has been deemed a disease. Can you imagine? They make a good case for why love could be perceived as a sickness. Lena is an orphan living in her aunt’s household waiting for her treatment that will prevent her from getting the disease. Many good plans fail to work out though and Lena meets someone that makes her feel all the effects of love which confuses her. Does she feel this way because she is now sick or are the people protecting her lying to her? As love often does her life becomes complicated as she balances her quiet life at home with her new desire to break the rules and see Alex as much as she can.

I enjoyed the relationship between Lena and her best friend Hana. They are good to each other but have a few struggles and conflicts throughout the story but in the end they find they can count on each other.

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I was named after Mary Magdalene, who was nearly killed from love: “So infected with deliria and in violation of the pacts of society, she fell in love with men who would not have her or could not keep her.” (Book of Lamentations, Mary 13:1).

We learned all about it in Biblical Science. First there was John, then Matthew, then Jeremiah and Peter and Judas, and many other nameless men in-between.

Her last love, they say, was the greatest: a man named Joseph, a bachelor all of his life, who found her on the street, bruised and broken and half-crazy from deliria. There’s some debate about what kind of man Joseph was-whether he was righteous or not, whether he ever succumbed to the disease-but in any case, he took good care of her. He nursed her to health and tried to bring her peace. (87-88)

I enjoyed how Oliver twisted our own biblical stories to create and re-enforce this new history and makes a convincing argument against love.

Both books were borrowed from my local library.

I’m reading Maggie’s Stiefvater’s sequel to The Raven Boys, The Dream Thieves, and love it. I downloaded it to my kindle to encourage myself to finish a book on this device. I love using it as a mini-computer and as a game device but have yet to finish a book on it. Dream Thieves will be my first and I’m proud to say I’m half way through or in Kindle-speak 48%.

Four days into September already…My challenge.

I’ve planned this for awhile and can’t believe we are four days into the month! Thanks to Zoe at Little, Brown and Company I receive several beautiful packages a month of ARC’s. Thank you Zoe for keeping me on this list! Sometime at the end of the school year I started to get really behind on reading these lovely new books. Time to change that.

I’m dedicating September to reading as many ARC’s from this pile as I can and reviewing them. I still have a half-done review of The Queen of Kentucky by Alecia Whitaker to finish and share. While this stack of books is not cluttering my house per se it does clutter my conscience. Time to get many of them read and spread the word. I started reading Ask the passengers by A.S. King yesterday and I love it.

My friend Tina might join me in reading a few of her stacked-up ARC’s also. If you have a small or large stack of Advanced Readers maybe you want to join us as well.

I’m not going to set a number and set myself up for failure but I’d like to read at least this stack and review them before them become dusty antiques in the corner.

You're A Good Man Charlie Brown

We have a busy weekend. My husband’s play is up and this scene is one of my favorites. So free and happy, celebrating the joy of Christmas. Groovy Girl has been Woodstock in two of the four shows and we have family in town enjoying the play.

I did finish two books today; The History of Love by Nicole Krauss-what a beautiful story-I could have started all over again and Lucky Cap by Patrick Jennings, which has been Groovy Girl’s story time book but her late nights with rehearsals have delayed our reading so this morning we cuddled in the big bed and finished the last 8 pages. Love those mornings. Then I got up and grocery shopped and cleaned house. My book club meets here Monday night and we are skyping author Anne Ylvisaker, the author of Little Klein, Dear Papa and The Luck of the Buttons. I’m very excited about this event…I just need to make it through this weekend’s performances.

Have a very love-filled weekend.

How To Buy A Love Of Reading by Tanya Egan Gibson

I can’t imagine not having a book in my hand for most of my life. Even in my wild 20’s I read during parties and in my 30’s I read between waitressing and bartending shifts. I’ve never wavered in my love for books and all they hold so it was interesting to have my handsome husband give me this book for a birthday gift.

Synopsis:

When Carley Wells is asked by her H.S. English teacher what her favorite book is, she answers: “Never met one I liked.” Her parents are both horrified when the English teacher passes this information to them and so begins her parents quest to bring literature to Carley. Because they have a ton of money her parents decide to hire a writer who will help Carley create a work of fiction. Through the hired author and Carley’s eyes we see this incredible life of money, boredom, parental error and self-loathing.

My Thoughts:

Carley is an overweight young woman who is in love with her best friend Hunter. Hunter suffers from major depression and chooses to drown his feelings in Vicodin and alcohol. Hunter and Carley have a somewhat toxic friendship as they rely on each other, trying to hide their own negative feelings.

The parents of each of these teenagers is a terrible parental example. Hunter’s mother has a thing for Jackie O and spends more time watching clips of Jackie’s tour of the White House than she does listening to her son. Carley’s mom wants her to be thin and reminds her of it every day. Carley’s dad had a few good qualities until its revealed that he’s having an affair. They seem to think throwing money at each problem is the best solution. It doesn’t work. Carley’s character grows throughout the story and this makes the journey very worthwhile. Does she get a love of reading? You’ll have to read the book to find out.

A sample:

Carley’s father had bought her Choose Your Own Adventures when she was a kid, mazelike books that begin with you waking up places like the planet Zantor and having to make choices like whether to trust a family of six-headed purple Zantorians who tell you to follow them home to safety before sundown when the planet’s carnivorous plants will wake up. Only problem is that the Zantorians, with their six mouths of fangs, are a little vague about what they themselves eat. If you take the Zantorians up on their offer to “have you over for dinner,” turn to page four. If you decide to take your chances tiptoeing through the snapping tulips, turn to page ten. The only thing Carley ever liked about them was working backward from the end, taking the forks in reverse to figure out how to end up on a spaceship bound for home. (39)

Here is Tanya Egan Gibson’s website and her twitter link.
I am interested to see what her next book might be like.

p.s. I read this book way back in August-one of these cold Fall days my reviews will catch up with what I’m reading now.

If The Witness Lied by Caroline B. Cooney

It’s been years since I read any of Cooney’s popular titles but I picked up this title as my husband and I browsed for books for Teenage Boy to take on vacation. I’ve griped about this before but he does not like to GO TO the LIBRARY anymore…!? I hope his senses will return to him one day but as I expect him to read-we get him the books, he picks out a few that he “deems” somewhat interesting and he reads them. He read this one over vacation and when I asked him how it was he looked at me and shrugged very nonchalantly (if you have teenagers you know what I mean) and said it was okay in a very flat line voice. So I had to pick it up and read it just to see what that meant.

And guess what…it was okay but only okay with a shoulder shrug…

The story was predictable.The characters were flat.
The candle on the cover doesn’t fit-Jack Fountain on a bike, a television camera, a little boy in a Jeep-any of these would have worked.
It never fully adds up and Cooney doesn’t give me a good reason for Aunt Cheryl.
It was kind of sad to think no one cared about these kids to look deeper into their tragedy! Come on neighbors down the street!

Can you feel my shoulders shrug?

Read The Compulsive Reader’s post if you want a different perspective.
Benjamin at Teen Reads talks about it .
Goodreads synopsis

My husband tells me that I never read books I don’t like because all my reviews are positive so this one’s for you, honey.