Showing posts with label teen fiction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label teen fiction. Show all posts
Sunday, June 8, 2014
Smoke
Another book completed last night in the 48 Hour Book Challenge! Yay! I read four hours Friday night, and another five and a half hours last night, which brings me up to 9 1/2 hours total. I am going to try to finish reading this morning so I can get some other stuff done. Besides which I have gotten some stuff read out of my TBR pile, which is always exciting! I was sent Smoke by Simon & Schuster around Banned Books Week. I of course had to read Burned first, so I could find out how the story began. I liked Smoke a lot - it covers a lot of territory in a surprising way. At the end of Burned, Pattyn Von Stratten was looking for revenge after the death of her true love and her unborn baby. This book picks up just after that book ends, with the death of her father and Pattyn's escape. Pattyn kills her father when she finds him beating her sister Jackie after Jackie is raped. This sounds overwhelming, and it is. Pattyn and Jackie deal with the murder in very different ways - while Pattyn leaves, Jackie must stay with the rest of her family and cope with the consequences. Both girls heal and find love again, but it is the journey that is more interesting. Pattyn's journey includes a migrant worker community and horses, Jackie's journey includes a confident, smart boy who has two moms. This will speak to many high schoolers, just as the first one did. I'll be doing a longer blog post on both books later on.
Friday, June 6, 2014
To All the Boys I've Loved Before
I have been a huge Jenny Han fan since The Summer I Turned Pretty came out in 2009. You shouldn't be surprised by that information, since I just reviewed Burn for Burn and Fire with Fire here and I already said how excited I was to read Ashes for Ashes. So I shrieked out loud when I walked out my front door one morning, and discovered a package from Simon & Schuster. The padded envelope contained the ARC of To All the Boys I've Loved Before, along with a notebook and pen. I love getting publishing swag, and the fact that it was Jenny Han swag just made it that much better. I started reading right away (with the Julio Iglesias and Willie Nelson duet stuck in my head, unfortunately). I saved my review to post once the book was published. Now the book is out so you can all run out and get it. It is also a great choice to kick off my contribution for #weneeddiversebooks within the 48 Hour Book Challenge, so I am thrilled to be talking about it tonight.
Lara Jean Song is a romantic at heart. She is the middle sister - there is an older sister, Margot, and a younger sister, Kitty. Their doctor father has raised them alone since their mother died when Lara Jean was ten. The sisters are sometimes called "the Song girls" - their mother (who was Korean)'s last name was Song, and "we all have Song for our middle name, and we look more Song than Covey anyway, more Korean than white." (p. 9) Margot grew up quickly when their mom died, and runs the household most of the time. Their father is an OB/GYN, and is unpredictable in his schedule, so the girls rely on each other. Lara Jean and Kitty are used to Margot caring for them and keeping their lives organized. Now Margot is going abroad to Scotland for college, and Lara Jean already misses her tremendously. On the other hand, she is also determined to show Margot how successfully the rest of the family can survive when she's gone. Right before Margot leaves, she breaks up with her boyfriend, Josh. Lara Jean has spent lots of time with Margot and Josh (he is their neighbor too). While she doesn't understand why Margot broke up with Josh, she has kept a secret for a long time. Lara Jean has always been in love with Josh too.
Lara Jean has a ritual for ending her crushes on guys - she writes them one last letter. "They're not love letters in the strictest sense of the word. My letters are for when I don't want to be in love anymore. They're for good-bye. Because after I write my letter, I'm no longer consumed by my all-consuming love....If love is like a possession, maybe my letters are like my exorcisms. My letters set me free. Or at least they are supposed to." (unpaged) She has kept these letters in a hatbox, and there are five of them, the latest one to Josh. So in the first week of school, Lara Jean is shocked when one of the popular crowd, Peter Kavinsky, tells her he wants to talk to her. He says a letter was mailed to his house. She can't figure out how this might have happened, and Lara Jean is mortified. Because if Peter got his, then Josh did too. And that means he knows how she feels about him still. Even though he has belonged to Margot all along.
When Josh tries to talk to Lara Jean about the letter, she panics. She sees Peter (who has just broken up with his girlfriend Gen) in the hall, and runs up and kisses him, in an effort to convince Josh that she doesn't like him at all. Afterwards, Pete and Lara Jean decide to fake a relationship to make both Gen and Josh jealous. It seems to be working. At the same time, Josh is trying to figure out where he fits, both at school and in the Covey family, without Margot there. And he's considering Lara Jean with new eyes, now that he knows that she liked him too.
While this book is created with some of my favorites subjects in mind - school and romance, it also has a strong sense of family and sisterhood, something I relate to very much. You know I see the sister relationship in Frances and Gloria these days. I've also written here about my relationship with my own sister previously. My relationship with my sister is one of the most important things in my life, and it is quite often the lens through which I see myself.
This is also true of Lara Jean. She always sees herself in relation to Margot, and Margot is a typical oldest sister. On top of that Margot feels very responsible for her sisters, and takes care of most things for Kitty and Lara Jean. The first time Lara Jean drives after Margot leaves for Scotland, she admits that her directional skills are under-developedc: "I've never had to know how to get to the mall, because Margot always drove us there. But now I have to do better, because I'm responsible for driving Kitty around." (p.33) That is a perfect middle sister quote if I've ever heard one. At the beginning of the novel, Lara Jean is bookended by her two sisters. I've described Margot, and Kitty is demanding, slightly devious, and a little spoiled. Kitty is cute, Margot is smart. There is nothing about Lara Jean that makes her stand out from her sisters when Margot leaves. She doesn't actually want to stand out - Lara Jean is perfectly content to be one of "the Song girls".
When Margot goes away to college, all three sisters are forced to rethink their relationships to each other, rethink the definitions they comfortably fell into in the past few years. For instance, Lara Jean and Margot have always babied Kitty and taken care of her every need. "After Mommy died, we all had to realign ourselves. Everybody had new roles. Margot and I were no longer locked in battle, because we both understood that Kitty was ours to take care of now." (p. 338-9) But with Margot gone, Lara Jean begins teaching Kitty some of the chores she had done with Margot previously. They had always just done them, and shielded Kitty from having to do any chores. Kitty becomes more independent as Lara Jean begins doing more with Peter and his friends, and it is a good thing.
Even from Scotland, Margot has been protecting her sisters. She doesn't want them to know how unsure she is in her new environment, how lost and homesick she feels. When Margot arrives home for Christmas break, Lara Jean realizes how much things have changed: "Is this how people lose touch? I didn't think that could happen with sisters. Maybe with other people, but never with us. Before Margot left, I knew what she was thinking without having to ask; I knew everything about her. Not anymore." (p. 294) This really resonated with me. I, too, went away to college, although not as far. But I know how it feels to see the change in your family from the outside and not be able to find your comfortable place in your family again when you return. You've changed. They've changed. Margot finally says to Lara Jean "'But then I left, and it's like you didn't need me as much as I thought.' Her voice breaks. 'You were fine without me.'" (p. 344) I have been in Margot's shoes and I know how she feels. But what I hadn't considered was Lara Jean's perspective as the younger sister. Lara Jean retorts "'Only because you taught me everything!'" (p. 344) It is a watershed moment for the girls as they see their relationship anew.
I haven't talked much about the romance at the heart of this book, which is unusual for me. But I will say this - I did love the romance here. I was surprised at how much I rooted for Lara Jean and wanted her to realize the potential of what she might have as her relationships change. She's never seen herself outside of her sisters before, and she has something to offer. To me, this book is so much more about the sisters and how they change, but it is a fun look at romance too.
These sisters can weather anything together, and I love their friendship. It was a great moment in my life when my sister and I became friends besides being sisters, and the Song girls need each other's friendship even more than they realize. Jenny Han has scored another winner.
To All the Boys I've Loved Before. Jenny Han. Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2014.
ARC sent to me by the publisher for review
Lara Jean Song is a romantic at heart. She is the middle sister - there is an older sister, Margot, and a younger sister, Kitty. Their doctor father has raised them alone since their mother died when Lara Jean was ten. The sisters are sometimes called "the Song girls" - their mother (who was Korean)'s last name was Song, and "we all have Song for our middle name, and we look more Song than Covey anyway, more Korean than white." (p. 9) Margot grew up quickly when their mom died, and runs the household most of the time. Their father is an OB/GYN, and is unpredictable in his schedule, so the girls rely on each other. Lara Jean and Kitty are used to Margot caring for them and keeping their lives organized. Now Margot is going abroad to Scotland for college, and Lara Jean already misses her tremendously. On the other hand, she is also determined to show Margot how successfully the rest of the family can survive when she's gone. Right before Margot leaves, she breaks up with her boyfriend, Josh. Lara Jean has spent lots of time with Margot and Josh (he is their neighbor too). While she doesn't understand why Margot broke up with Josh, she has kept a secret for a long time. Lara Jean has always been in love with Josh too.
Lara Jean has a ritual for ending her crushes on guys - she writes them one last letter. "They're not love letters in the strictest sense of the word. My letters are for when I don't want to be in love anymore. They're for good-bye. Because after I write my letter, I'm no longer consumed by my all-consuming love....If love is like a possession, maybe my letters are like my exorcisms. My letters set me free. Or at least they are supposed to." (unpaged) She has kept these letters in a hatbox, and there are five of them, the latest one to Josh. So in the first week of school, Lara Jean is shocked when one of the popular crowd, Peter Kavinsky, tells her he wants to talk to her. He says a letter was mailed to his house. She can't figure out how this might have happened, and Lara Jean is mortified. Because if Peter got his, then Josh did too. And that means he knows how she feels about him still. Even though he has belonged to Margot all along.
When Josh tries to talk to Lara Jean about the letter, she panics. She sees Peter (who has just broken up with his girlfriend Gen) in the hall, and runs up and kisses him, in an effort to convince Josh that she doesn't like him at all. Afterwards, Pete and Lara Jean decide to fake a relationship to make both Gen and Josh jealous. It seems to be working. At the same time, Josh is trying to figure out where he fits, both at school and in the Covey family, without Margot there. And he's considering Lara Jean with new eyes, now that he knows that she liked him too.
While this book is created with some of my favorites subjects in mind - school and romance, it also has a strong sense of family and sisterhood, something I relate to very much. You know I see the sister relationship in Frances and Gloria these days. I've also written here about my relationship with my own sister previously. My relationship with my sister is one of the most important things in my life, and it is quite often the lens through which I see myself.
This is also true of Lara Jean. She always sees herself in relation to Margot, and Margot is a typical oldest sister. On top of that Margot feels very responsible for her sisters, and takes care of most things for Kitty and Lara Jean. The first time Lara Jean drives after Margot leaves for Scotland, she admits that her directional skills are under-developedc: "I've never had to know how to get to the mall, because Margot always drove us there. But now I have to do better, because I'm responsible for driving Kitty around." (p.33) That is a perfect middle sister quote if I've ever heard one. At the beginning of the novel, Lara Jean is bookended by her two sisters. I've described Margot, and Kitty is demanding, slightly devious, and a little spoiled. Kitty is cute, Margot is smart. There is nothing about Lara Jean that makes her stand out from her sisters when Margot leaves. She doesn't actually want to stand out - Lara Jean is perfectly content to be one of "the Song girls".
When Margot goes away to college, all three sisters are forced to rethink their relationships to each other, rethink the definitions they comfortably fell into in the past few years. For instance, Lara Jean and Margot have always babied Kitty and taken care of her every need. "After Mommy died, we all had to realign ourselves. Everybody had new roles. Margot and I were no longer locked in battle, because we both understood that Kitty was ours to take care of now." (p. 338-9) But with Margot gone, Lara Jean begins teaching Kitty some of the chores she had done with Margot previously. They had always just done them, and shielded Kitty from having to do any chores. Kitty becomes more independent as Lara Jean begins doing more with Peter and his friends, and it is a good thing.
Even from Scotland, Margot has been protecting her sisters. She doesn't want them to know how unsure she is in her new environment, how lost and homesick she feels. When Margot arrives home for Christmas break, Lara Jean realizes how much things have changed: "Is this how people lose touch? I didn't think that could happen with sisters. Maybe with other people, but never with us. Before Margot left, I knew what she was thinking without having to ask; I knew everything about her. Not anymore." (p. 294) This really resonated with me. I, too, went away to college, although not as far. But I know how it feels to see the change in your family from the outside and not be able to find your comfortable place in your family again when you return. You've changed. They've changed. Margot finally says to Lara Jean "'But then I left, and it's like you didn't need me as much as I thought.' Her voice breaks. 'You were fine without me.'" (p. 344) I have been in Margot's shoes and I know how she feels. But what I hadn't considered was Lara Jean's perspective as the younger sister. Lara Jean retorts "'Only because you taught me everything!'" (p. 344) It is a watershed moment for the girls as they see their relationship anew.
I haven't talked much about the romance at the heart of this book, which is unusual for me. But I will say this - I did love the romance here. I was surprised at how much I rooted for Lara Jean and wanted her to realize the potential of what she might have as her relationships change. She's never seen herself outside of her sisters before, and she has something to offer. To me, this book is so much more about the sisters and how they change, but it is a fun look at romance too.
These sisters can weather anything together, and I love their friendship. It was a great moment in my life when my sister and I became friends besides being sisters, and the Song girls need each other's friendship even more than they realize. Jenny Han has scored another winner.
To All the Boys I've Loved Before. Jenny Han. Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2014.
ARC sent to me by the publisher for review
Thursday, April 10, 2014
Burn for Burn, Fire with Fire
There are many sayings about revenge, but the one that kept coming to my mind as I read these books was this one: Revenge is a dish best served cold. Ironic that that saying is the one that best applies to book that have to do with fire: Burn for Burn and Fire with Fire.
To begin with, there are three teenage girls: Mary, Kat, and Lillia. It is their senior year in high school, a year that is supposed to be full of fun, starry-eyed excitement, and big plans. Those plans, for most seniors, include college, graduation, and one last year of freedom. But for Mary, Kat, and Lillia, those plans are focused on revenge for past wrongs.
Lillia is one of the in-crowd. She and her best friend Rennie run the cheer leading squad. Lillia's little sister Nadia is on the squad, too, and she basks in her older sister's popularity. Lillia doesn't have a boyfriend, but she has a close guy friend, Alex Lind, who she secretly wishes could be a little bit more. Lillia and Nadia are rich - the kind of wealthy where everything comes easily, where they don't think twice about having the kinds of things others covet. So what could Lillia possibly need revenge for?
Kat is a tough girl. Unlike Lillia, not much comes easily to Kat. Instead she has always been given scraps of attention, food, whatever is around. She was raised by her father, and has an older brother who seems to be going nowhere. She, too, has a connection with Alex Lind - they have spent the summer hanging out together, and suddenly their relationship has changed. But that is no reason for revenge. Her reason has to do with Rennie, Lillia's best friend.
And lastly, there's Mary. Mary has just returned to Jar Island, where they all go to school, to live with her aunt. As Kat and Lillia get to know her, she reveals her own desire for revenge and what has caused it. Kat's story is full of friends who are not really her friends, cruelty, bullying and a final event that makes you want to cover your eyes. This is how the fire starts smoldering.
When Kat, Mary and Lillia first become friends, Kat seems to be the ringleader. As I mentioned before, she's a little bit tough, tougher than the other girls by far. So it's Kat who talks the other two girls into coming together to help each other get revenge. She talks Mary into it by emphasizing their friendship: "'I don't have to know you to see that you're a total mess over whatever happened, like, years ago. And hey, it wouldn't be a free ride. You'd have to get your hands dirty too. But we'd be in it together. The three of us.'" (p. 129). That's all it takes. Kat, Lillia and Mary agree to participate in the revenge plot, with the idea that they will take down one of their grudges at a time.
There were many times in the first 250 pages of Burn for Burn where I felt uncomfortable with the central idea of this trilogy. Revenge felt a bit too mean-spirited for me, and the ideas the girls came up with seemed too extreme for what had happened to some of them. And the girls are fairly single-minded in their pursuit of revenge. It doesn't matter if people's reputations get ruined, their futures in jeopardy, or if they get physically hurt. Once that fire starts burning, it is difficult to put out.
The events of both books are like a rolling stone - they just keep on gathering speed. And I sort of wondered when one of the girls would start to speak up and put a halt to this process. But the three girls have very different personalities, and they aren't exactly conducive to stopping revenge. Those personalities combine into a perfect storm. Mary is mild, quiet, and deeply hurt by the events that unfolded. Although those events happened years ago, she cannot let them go, and they have brought her back to the island. Lillia is more of a people-pleaser, and does not stand up for what she thinks. For example, although most people believe she and Rennie are best friends, Lillia can't stand Rennie. But it's easier to just go along with the flow, to let others believe what they want, to not rock the boat. And Kat continues on with the revenge because she can see how the others' revenge plans can benefit her own. It's sneaky, but also strong-willed.
As I said, I couldn't imagine how these girls could really feel so strongly about getting revenge. Lillia's original revenge, in particular, feels a little petty. Then, on Homecoming night, things change. And while the revenge idea still made me feel a little discomfited, I was totally caught up in what happens to all three girls. Secrets begin to be revealed, and they are shocking. It is truly astonishing the lengths to which these girls will go for revenge. I can't say anything more about these books without spoiling something, but it is can't-stop reading.
I am always interested in authors collaborating in the way Han and Vivian do. According to the blurb on the back of Fire with Fire, the authors "met in graduate school in New York City and have been inseparable ever since." When I read books that are co-written, I like to play "Spot the Seam". The authors often split writing duties in some obvious way - one author writing in one voice, the other creating a different character. But there are three main characters here (each with their own chapters in both books), and while I've read both authors' work previously, I couldn't decipher who wrote which character. And that just made me keep reading! I'm not sure if they created a hybrid tone for these books, but it was seamless and fascinating!
Another thing that I think works very well in these books is the genre-busting. While these books are primarily realistic, school fiction, there is a...hint of something else. Realistic and school fiction are my two favorite genres of teen fiction, and these books work particularly well. But the introduction of another genre also is believable and clever, and totally surprising. I was shocked by what happened and how that changed my reading of the novels. Frankly, the switch took this series from one I would have enjoyed to one I wanted to blog about.
And, finally, perhaps the thing that I loved most - the island setting. I know I've mentioned before that I spent two years living on Nantucket. I still have a real fondness for islands, and am very familiar with how hard it is to change people's reputations in a small town. These girls, particularly Kat and Lillia, have their reputations set before they are even old enough to care. On the island, life is an open door (sorry!) for Lillia, and that door is locked tight against Kat, no matter what she does. It is interesting to see how that affects each of them.
I sped through the second book, Fire with Fire, in record time, and will be waiting with bated breath for the third, Ashes to Ashes, which will come out next fall. I can't wait to see how revenge plays out for these girls.
Burn for Burn. Jenny Han, Siobhan Vivian. Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2012.
Fire with Fire. Jenny Han, Siobhan Vivian. Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2013.
both books sent by the publisher for review
To begin with, there are three teenage girls: Mary, Kat, and Lillia. It is their senior year in high school, a year that is supposed to be full of fun, starry-eyed excitement, and big plans. Those plans, for most seniors, include college, graduation, and one last year of freedom. But for Mary, Kat, and Lillia, those plans are focused on revenge for past wrongs.
Lillia is one of the in-crowd. She and her best friend Rennie run the cheer leading squad. Lillia's little sister Nadia is on the squad, too, and she basks in her older sister's popularity. Lillia doesn't have a boyfriend, but she has a close guy friend, Alex Lind, who she secretly wishes could be a little bit more. Lillia and Nadia are rich - the kind of wealthy where everything comes easily, where they don't think twice about having the kinds of things others covet. So what could Lillia possibly need revenge for?
Kat is a tough girl. Unlike Lillia, not much comes easily to Kat. Instead she has always been given scraps of attention, food, whatever is around. She was raised by her father, and has an older brother who seems to be going nowhere. She, too, has a connection with Alex Lind - they have spent the summer hanging out together, and suddenly their relationship has changed. But that is no reason for revenge. Her reason has to do with Rennie, Lillia's best friend.
And lastly, there's Mary. Mary has just returned to Jar Island, where they all go to school, to live with her aunt. As Kat and Lillia get to know her, she reveals her own desire for revenge and what has caused it. Kat's story is full of friends who are not really her friends, cruelty, bullying and a final event that makes you want to cover your eyes. This is how the fire starts smoldering.
When Kat, Mary and Lillia first become friends, Kat seems to be the ringleader. As I mentioned before, she's a little bit tough, tougher than the other girls by far. So it's Kat who talks the other two girls into coming together to help each other get revenge. She talks Mary into it by emphasizing their friendship: "'I don't have to know you to see that you're a total mess over whatever happened, like, years ago. And hey, it wouldn't be a free ride. You'd have to get your hands dirty too. But we'd be in it together. The three of us.'" (p. 129). That's all it takes. Kat, Lillia and Mary agree to participate in the revenge plot, with the idea that they will take down one of their grudges at a time.
There were many times in the first 250 pages of Burn for Burn where I felt uncomfortable with the central idea of this trilogy. Revenge felt a bit too mean-spirited for me, and the ideas the girls came up with seemed too extreme for what had happened to some of them. And the girls are fairly single-minded in their pursuit of revenge. It doesn't matter if people's reputations get ruined, their futures in jeopardy, or if they get physically hurt. Once that fire starts burning, it is difficult to put out.
The events of both books are like a rolling stone - they just keep on gathering speed. And I sort of wondered when one of the girls would start to speak up and put a halt to this process. But the three girls have very different personalities, and they aren't exactly conducive to stopping revenge. Those personalities combine into a perfect storm. Mary is mild, quiet, and deeply hurt by the events that unfolded. Although those events happened years ago, she cannot let them go, and they have brought her back to the island. Lillia is more of a people-pleaser, and does not stand up for what she thinks. For example, although most people believe she and Rennie are best friends, Lillia can't stand Rennie. But it's easier to just go along with the flow, to let others believe what they want, to not rock the boat. And Kat continues on with the revenge because she can see how the others' revenge plans can benefit her own. It's sneaky, but also strong-willed.
As I said, I couldn't imagine how these girls could really feel so strongly about getting revenge. Lillia's original revenge, in particular, feels a little petty. Then, on Homecoming night, things change. And while the revenge idea still made me feel a little discomfited, I was totally caught up in what happens to all three girls. Secrets begin to be revealed, and they are shocking. It is truly astonishing the lengths to which these girls will go for revenge. I can't say anything more about these books without spoiling something, but it is can't-stop reading.
I am always interested in authors collaborating in the way Han and Vivian do. According to the blurb on the back of Fire with Fire, the authors "met in graduate school in New York City and have been inseparable ever since." When I read books that are co-written, I like to play "Spot the Seam". The authors often split writing duties in some obvious way - one author writing in one voice, the other creating a different character. But there are three main characters here (each with their own chapters in both books), and while I've read both authors' work previously, I couldn't decipher who wrote which character. And that just made me keep reading! I'm not sure if they created a hybrid tone for these books, but it was seamless and fascinating!
Another thing that I think works very well in these books is the genre-busting. While these books are primarily realistic, school fiction, there is a...hint of something else. Realistic and school fiction are my two favorite genres of teen fiction, and these books work particularly well. But the introduction of another genre also is believable and clever, and totally surprising. I was shocked by what happened and how that changed my reading of the novels. Frankly, the switch took this series from one I would have enjoyed to one I wanted to blog about.
And, finally, perhaps the thing that I loved most - the island setting. I know I've mentioned before that I spent two years living on Nantucket. I still have a real fondness for islands, and am very familiar with how hard it is to change people's reputations in a small town. These girls, particularly Kat and Lillia, have their reputations set before they are even old enough to care. On the island, life is an open door (sorry!) for Lillia, and that door is locked tight against Kat, no matter what she does. It is interesting to see how that affects each of them.
I sped through the second book, Fire with Fire, in record time, and will be waiting with bated breath for the third, Ashes to Ashes, which will come out next fall. I can't wait to see how revenge plays out for these girls.
Burn for Burn. Jenny Han, Siobhan Vivian. Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2012.
Fire with Fire. Jenny Han, Siobhan Vivian. Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2013.
both books sent by the publisher for review
Monday, October 28, 2013
Eleanor & Park
This was my second time reading Eleanor & Park. Usually I read the books I'm going to blog about twice - that way I can mark quotes I'd like to use in my review. But I usually read books twice in a row, pretty quickly, so that I can remember all the things that struck me the first time. This time, however, I had to read it the first time and return it - there were holds on it. And that's fairly unusual - even though my public library is small, there are rarely holds lists there for more than the most popular titles. I was gratified to see the long holds list. I love when someone else in my town sees how great a book is without me having to shout it from the rooftops! When I finally got it back, I dog-eared many, many pages with quotes I wanted to share.
Eleanor & Park would have been a sure win for me, no matter what. It combines school (I love books set in schools, for whatever reason) and romance. But the icing on the cake is that Rowell chose to set this in the '80's. Without dating myself too much (yeah, right!), I grew up in the '80's. So reading this didn't feel like a blast from the past, it felt like the way things were for me.
A side note about the time period - at my old library, they started putting historical fiction genre labels on books set in the 1980's. While I technically agree that books set more than 20 years ago are historical fiction, boy, does that make me feel old!
Now back to Eleanor & Park. It begins on the day Eleanor first gets on the bus. It's a bus full of high school students, and like any group of students who have been riding the bus together for any length of time, they have created a stratification. The coolest (and most obnoxious) kids sit in the back, freshmen in the front, and everyone else somewhere in the middle. When Eleanor first stands tentatively in the front of the bus, Park notes that she is "not just new - but big and awkward. With crazy hair, bright red on top of curly...She had on a plaid shirt, a man's shirt, with half a dozen weird necklaces hanging around her neck and scarves wrapped around her wrists. She reminded Park of a scarecrow or one of the trouble dolls his mom kept on her dresser." (p. 8). Eleanor looks so different from everyone else, and she is harassed from this very first moment. By the time she has reached the seat where Park slumps down, she has been told she can't sit in multiple seats. So Park tells her to sit next to him. And not in a nice way, either. Having grown up with these kids, he knows the comments he is in for even by sitting next to her.
And yet, from that small action, something huge grows. They very slowly develop a friendship based first on the comics Park reads on the bus. Then they begin listening to and sharing music. One of my favorite pieces in the book was when Park gives Eleanor a Smiths tape - the album "How Soon is Now?" Park hears the lyrics as "I am the son... and the heir." When Eleanor listens to it again, she hears "I am the sun...and the air." (p. 54) It is one of those little moments where you see how different, how separate they each are. And it makes their eventual romance that much sweeter.
Eleanor's life is very,very difficult. She has just recently returned to her mom, siblings and stepfather. She was living with another family for a long time after her stepfather kicked her out. He's a drinker, a druggie, and has a temper. Richie is just skeevy, and I can only imagine how exhausted Eleanor's mother is with the effort of keeping them all out of Richie's way. There is no money. The children don't have shampoo, toothpaste, clothes that fit. Eleanor's daily reality is heartbreaking and the courage and grace that she carries is amazing. She purposefully dresses in wild colors so people won't notice she's worn the same jeans three days that week. That way, Eleanor feels like she can control what people say about her.
Eleanor lives in a carefully constructed house of lies and half-truths. Her stepfather is fairly out of control, but no one can know about it. They all live with an excruciating amount of tension. And Park's life is almost the polar opposite. His mother is Korean, and she met Park's father while he was serving in the military there. Eleanor is astonished by Park's family - so content, so put together, so different. "Eleanor imagined Park's dad, Tom Selleck, tucking his Dainty China person into his flak jacket and sneaking her out of Korea." (p.126).
Park sees how Eleanor looks to everyone else: "Eleanor, today, was wearing her sharkskin suit jacket and an old plaid cowboy shirt. She had more in common with his grandpa than with his mom." (p. 122). But he genuinely loves her, too. "As soon as he said it, she broke into a smile. And when Eleanor smiled, something broke inside him. Something always did." (p. 163). He loves her at first in spite of his wanting to fit in with everyone else. Then, as their romance continues, he loves those things that stand out about her best of all.
Rowell has constructed an amazing book. Of course, I love the music, but I also love many other things about this book. The romance is tender, juxtaposed against the suspense of Eleanor's family life. I physically hurt for the whole family - their desolation is piercing. Park's family is fascinating. They are quirky, endearing, but not perfect. Once Park's mother knows more about Eleanor's life, she tells Park "' In big family,' she said, 'everything, everybody spread so thin.'...'Nobody gets enough.' she said. 'Nobody gets what they need. When you always hungry, you get hungry in your head.'" (p. 189). This is such a strong description of Eleanor's family. Eleanor often feels like whatever she might have comes at the expense of her siblings or her mother.
I also love that Eleanor and Park are not your typical romance characters. I just read another teen romance (which shall remain nameless) where both of the main characters were gorgeous, blond and tanned. It is a relief to have characters who aren't perfect. They are originals.
Finally, Rowell's writing is extraordinary. I said at the beginning of the post that I dog-eared lots of quotes. I probably marked thirty quotes in this book - that moment of recognition happened over and over again for me. There were places where truth shines, where romance shows its face, moments of breathtaking cruelty, moments of sheer perfection. Teen romance feels like something to smile at, to marvel at. And this book is no exception. I can hardly wait to read Rainbow Rowell's next book!
Eleanor & Park. Rainbow Rowell. St. Martin's Griffin, 2013.
borrowed from Lewis & Clark Library
Eleanor & Park would have been a sure win for me, no matter what. It combines school (I love books set in schools, for whatever reason) and romance. But the icing on the cake is that Rowell chose to set this in the '80's. Without dating myself too much (yeah, right!), I grew up in the '80's. So reading this didn't feel like a blast from the past, it felt like the way things were for me.
A side note about the time period - at my old library, they started putting historical fiction genre labels on books set in the 1980's. While I technically agree that books set more than 20 years ago are historical fiction, boy, does that make me feel old!
Now back to Eleanor & Park. It begins on the day Eleanor first gets on the bus. It's a bus full of high school students, and like any group of students who have been riding the bus together for any length of time, they have created a stratification. The coolest (and most obnoxious) kids sit in the back, freshmen in the front, and everyone else somewhere in the middle. When Eleanor first stands tentatively in the front of the bus, Park notes that she is "not just new - but big and awkward. With crazy hair, bright red on top of curly...She had on a plaid shirt, a man's shirt, with half a dozen weird necklaces hanging around her neck and scarves wrapped around her wrists. She reminded Park of a scarecrow or one of the trouble dolls his mom kept on her dresser." (p. 8). Eleanor looks so different from everyone else, and she is harassed from this very first moment. By the time she has reached the seat where Park slumps down, she has been told she can't sit in multiple seats. So Park tells her to sit next to him. And not in a nice way, either. Having grown up with these kids, he knows the comments he is in for even by sitting next to her.
And yet, from that small action, something huge grows. They very slowly develop a friendship based first on the comics Park reads on the bus. Then they begin listening to and sharing music. One of my favorite pieces in the book was when Park gives Eleanor a Smiths tape - the album "How Soon is Now?" Park hears the lyrics as "I am the son... and the heir." When Eleanor listens to it again, she hears "I am the sun...and the air." (p. 54) It is one of those little moments where you see how different, how separate they each are. And it makes their eventual romance that much sweeter.
Eleanor's life is very,very difficult. She has just recently returned to her mom, siblings and stepfather. She was living with another family for a long time after her stepfather kicked her out. He's a drinker, a druggie, and has a temper. Richie is just skeevy, and I can only imagine how exhausted Eleanor's mother is with the effort of keeping them all out of Richie's way. There is no money. The children don't have shampoo, toothpaste, clothes that fit. Eleanor's daily reality is heartbreaking and the courage and grace that she carries is amazing. She purposefully dresses in wild colors so people won't notice she's worn the same jeans three days that week. That way, Eleanor feels like she can control what people say about her.
Eleanor lives in a carefully constructed house of lies and half-truths. Her stepfather is fairly out of control, but no one can know about it. They all live with an excruciating amount of tension. And Park's life is almost the polar opposite. His mother is Korean, and she met Park's father while he was serving in the military there. Eleanor is astonished by Park's family - so content, so put together, so different. "Eleanor imagined Park's dad, Tom Selleck, tucking his Dainty China person into his flak jacket and sneaking her out of Korea." (p.126).
Park sees how Eleanor looks to everyone else: "Eleanor, today, was wearing her sharkskin suit jacket and an old plaid cowboy shirt. She had more in common with his grandpa than with his mom." (p. 122). But he genuinely loves her, too. "As soon as he said it, she broke into a smile. And when Eleanor smiled, something broke inside him. Something always did." (p. 163). He loves her at first in spite of his wanting to fit in with everyone else. Then, as their romance continues, he loves those things that stand out about her best of all.
Rowell has constructed an amazing book. Of course, I love the music, but I also love many other things about this book. The romance is tender, juxtaposed against the suspense of Eleanor's family life. I physically hurt for the whole family - their desolation is piercing. Park's family is fascinating. They are quirky, endearing, but not perfect. Once Park's mother knows more about Eleanor's life, she tells Park "' In big family,' she said, 'everything, everybody spread so thin.'...'Nobody gets enough.' she said. 'Nobody gets what they need. When you always hungry, you get hungry in your head.'" (p. 189). This is such a strong description of Eleanor's family. Eleanor often feels like whatever she might have comes at the expense of her siblings or her mother.
I also love that Eleanor and Park are not your typical romance characters. I just read another teen romance (which shall remain nameless) where both of the main characters were gorgeous, blond and tanned. It is a relief to have characters who aren't perfect. They are originals.
Finally, Rowell's writing is extraordinary. I said at the beginning of the post that I dog-eared lots of quotes. I probably marked thirty quotes in this book - that moment of recognition happened over and over again for me. There were places where truth shines, where romance shows its face, moments of breathtaking cruelty, moments of sheer perfection. Teen romance feels like something to smile at, to marvel at. And this book is no exception. I can hardly wait to read Rainbow Rowell's next book!
Eleanor & Park. Rainbow Rowell. St. Martin's Griffin, 2013.
borrowed from Lewis & Clark Library
Sunday, March 31, 2013
Sarah Dessen
I haven't written about the teen side of "From Tots to Teens" spectrum in a while. I had been itching to write about teen books for a few months, but nothing seemed right. And then after Christmas, I got a Facebook message from a friend, asking why I hadn't read Sarah Dessen's latest book, What Happened to Goodbye. I wasn't sure why I hadn't, actually - I had bought it, more than a year ago, in hardcover. It has basketball in it, my favorite sport. I love Sarah Dessen's books and read them frequently, recommending them to friends. And when my friend posted that question, I was looking for a good read. I picked it up and read it in two days. Then I went back to some of my favorite Sarah Dessen novels, because I was sick, searching, and badly in need of comfort reading. In two weeks, I read four Sarah Dessen novels! Then another friend mentioned she had the Advance Readers' Copy of The Moon and More, her newest novel, which was very exciting! I read that one in two days also!
I've read these books several times at different points in my life. This time, I took four books (Just Listen, Lock and Key, Along for the Ride, and What Happened to Goodbye) and decided to write about one particular theme that was resonating with me. Maybe it's because I'm a mom now, maybe it's just what has been on my mind lately. Not only did I need comfort reading, but I needed to see families - all kinds of families. They are all represented in Dessen's books. Good ones, bad ones, healthy ones, dysfunctional ones. What I think is most interesting about the way Dessen portrays these families is how the central characters, all teenagers, change how they see their families - their flaws, their good moments. It connects the teens to their own families for a moment in time, and it can be magic.
In Just Listen, Annabel is holding on to secrets. She has spent the whole summer pretending that things will be the same when school starts, but of course, they aren't. Her best friend, Sophie, hates her, has rejected her, and because Sophie is popular, now it feels like everyone is against Annabel. This book is really about Annabel, about how this secret changes her, and how her relationship with Owen, who is one of my favorite teenage boy characters - I won't spoil that for you!
Annabel is the youngest of three sisters - Kirsten is the oldest, and Whitney is the middle sister. The time of this novel is a time of growth, reflection and change for all three sisters. Annabel describes a photo taken before these events: "In the picture, we are all intertwined: Kirsten's fingers are wrapped in my mother's, Whitney has her arm over her shoulder and I'm in front, curved slightly toward my mom as well, my arm around her waist." (p. 79). Before the novel takes place (the picture was taken three years prior), the girls are a cohesive unit, a very visible family - all touching. Throughout the year before the book starts, the girls have grown apart. They are all struggling with their own issues and some of their problems are causing cracks in the family relationships.
Then all three of the girls are separately reminded of an incident that took place on the day of Annabel's ninth birthday party. The incident is important to each of the girls for different reasons, and they each remember it differently. Annabel reflects "So many versions of just one memory, and yet none of them were right or wrong. Instead, they were all pieces. Only when fitted together, edge to edge, could they even begin to tell the whole story." (p. 236). And to me, this exemplifies families - everyone in the family remembers things or experiences them slightly differently. It is the mosaic that makes the whole picture. Even this novel isn't the whole story of the family. Thinking about the family portrait I mentioned earlier, Annabel realizes "...that was just one day, one shot. In the time since, we had arranged and rearranged ourselves so many times...All i had to do was ask, and I, too, would be easily brought back, surrounded and immersed, finding myself safe, somewhere in between." (p. 353). In this novel, the sisters are reunited through the ways they change. They grow together, instead of apart.
In Lock & Key, Ruby has no family to speak of in the beginning. She has been discovered living in a house without power after her mother left her. Ruby has been doing her best to stay afloat, but it isn't enough, and she is turned over to her older sister, Cora. In Ruby's eyes, Cora abandoned her family when she went off to college and never returned. So Ruby really doesn't want to be with Cora and her husband, Jamie, at all. She feels like Cora must hate her and her mom. Ruby thinks she would be better off on her own.
While in the prep school Cora and Jamie send her to, Ruby is given an assignment. She must define a word pulled out of a jar, and the word Ruby pulls out is 'family'. What Ruby learns about herself, the family she was born into, and the family she creates through this extended assignment. In this novel, Dessen creates a mother who isn't very likable. In fact, while Ruby sees some of her mother's flaws, she works around them, mostly because she is a minor and has to cope with her mother. As the book progresses and Ruby settles into a different life and family, the reader begins to realize how at her best, Ruby's mother was dysfunctional. At her worst, she was addicted and abusive. It is hard for me as a mother to read about Ruby's recollections of her mother. But that was Ruby's life and she made it work until it doesn't work anymore.
Finally, part of Ruby's realization about family pulls together these disparate lives she has been living - the poor, dysfunctional barely-making-it life, and the rich, comfortable, healthy life she lives now. Ruby thinks "What is family? They were the people who claimed you. In good, in bad, in parts or in whole, they were the ones who showed up, who stayed in there, regardless..." (p. 400). Ruby isn't perfect - after all, she has lived a life that has made her tough and resilient, but also suspicious and untrusting. But she has found a perfect way to balance the family she has with the family she has come from in a way that works for her.
Auden from Along for the Ride doesn't have a perfect family either. She has lived with her mother since her parents divorced. Her mother is aloof, someone who is tightly controlled. She is an academic and at the top of her field. But that means Auden is mostly on her own. Her father's new wife, Heidi, has invited Auden to stay with them the summer after graduation. Her father is trying to write his second novel, one he has been working on for years. Heidi just had a baby. Auden's mother promises that Auden's father will be no help at all with the baby, just as he was with Auden and her brother. All Auden knows is that she needs to try something new. So she travels to Colby, a beach town where Heidi and her dad live. And she has her carefully planned life and expectations turned upside down.
Auden has always felt that "school was my solace, and studying let me escape, allowing me to live a thousand vicarious lives." (p. 9). She has spent her whole life trying to get her parents' attention and their approval by rigidly sticking to academic success. After all, both of her parents have succeeded in the academic world. This summer she is beginning to realize that while she spent all this time studying, she was missing doing all the things regular kids do. She doesn't have a lot of friends - she studied too hard for that. And Auden hasn't had a food fight, gone to a party. This summer in Colby, she is beginning to understand the freedom that comes from not living up to anyone's expectations.
One of the things that is made most clear in this Dessen novel is how teenagers, those getting ready to spread their wings, begin to change how they see their parents. But Auden, who has grown up hearing stories her mother has told about her father, begins to experience her parents' flaws firsthand. Her mother told Auden about her stepmother, Heidi, "' I just hope she's not expecting your father to be of much help,' she said...'I was lucky if he changed a diaper every once in a while.'" (p. 13). After Heidi and Auden's father have a fight, Auden realizes "My dad might have made an effort to sound like he would compromise. But again, he had gotten his way." (p. 216). And Auden's mother doesn't like how Auden is spreading her wings this summer either: "'I spend eighteen years teaching you about the importance of taking yourself seriously, and in a matter of weeks you're wearing pink bikinis and totally boy crazy.'" (. 252). Auden has to learn how to become herself, which involves learning to see her relationship with her parents as it is and as it might become.
In What Happened to Goodbye, Mclean has spent the last three years moving with her father from town to town, rehabilitating poorly run restaurants. Her parents divorced and Mclean decided to choose living with her father. The reason for the divorce seems straight-forward at the start of the novel. Mclean's mother had an affair with the head basketball coach at Defriese University, the college in their town. Not only is the affair a matter of local gossip, but her father has always been a huge Defriese basketball fan, so Mclean feels like her mother's choice is even more personal. Mclean has kept her mother at arm's length for a long time. She feels that "my mother wanted control over me, and I wouldn't give it to her. It made me crazy, so she in turn made me crazy." (p. 82).
Mclean has taken her father's side in the divorce, no matter how much he insists that she spend time with her mother and her now-husband. After spending some time with her mom, Mclean begins to realize that maybe keeping herself away from her mom for so long has hurt more than she thought. "I must have seemed like such a stranger to her...both of us wading through this limbo world between what we'd been and what we might be. Like seeing her from a distance earlier, this thought made me unexpectedly sad.." (p. 183-4). Mclean, too, must come to terms with what has happened between her parents. Of course, as an adult, I know that divorce isn't just one person's fault. Mclean has to see this for herself, though, as part of the process of growing up.
Finally, The Moon and More. I don't want to say anything much about it, since I read it before its publication date in June. I'll just say that in this novel, Emaline has an unusual family structure, too. She has grown up in an extended step-family, with stepsisters who she works with in a daily basis. Emaline hasn't had much contact with her biological father until this summer. Her interactions with both parts of her family tugged at my heart. It is a great book, one that combines some of the best of Sarah Dessen's themes with some new ideas.
Finally, I'll end with a line from one of Frances & Gloria's current favorite movies, Hotel Transylvania, which also has a teenager spreading her wings in it. "Children have to discover things for themselves. They'll stumble and fall, laugh and cry, but such is life." Part of discovering things for themselves is seeing their families for what they really are, not just what they have always hoped they might be.
Just Listen. Sarah Dessen. Viking, 2006.
Lock & Key. Sarah Dessen. Speak: Penguin, 2008.
Along for the Ride. Sarah Dessen. Speak: Penguin, 2009.
What Happened to Goodbye. Sarah Dessen. Viking, 2011.
The Moon and More. Sarah Dessen. Viking, 2013.
Just Listen and Lock & Key borrowed from Lewis & Clark Library, Along for the Ride and What Happened to Goodbye from personal collection. The Moon and More read in Advanced Readers Copy.
I've read these books several times at different points in my life. This time, I took four books (Just Listen, Lock and Key, Along for the Ride, and What Happened to Goodbye) and decided to write about one particular theme that was resonating with me. Maybe it's because I'm a mom now, maybe it's just what has been on my mind lately. Not only did I need comfort reading, but I needed to see families - all kinds of families. They are all represented in Dessen's books. Good ones, bad ones, healthy ones, dysfunctional ones. What I think is most interesting about the way Dessen portrays these families is how the central characters, all teenagers, change how they see their families - their flaws, their good moments. It connects the teens to their own families for a moment in time, and it can be magic.
Annabel is the youngest of three sisters - Kirsten is the oldest, and Whitney is the middle sister. The time of this novel is a time of growth, reflection and change for all three sisters. Annabel describes a photo taken before these events: "In the picture, we are all intertwined: Kirsten's fingers are wrapped in my mother's, Whitney has her arm over her shoulder and I'm in front, curved slightly toward my mom as well, my arm around her waist." (p. 79). Before the novel takes place (the picture was taken three years prior), the girls are a cohesive unit, a very visible family - all touching. Throughout the year before the book starts, the girls have grown apart. They are all struggling with their own issues and some of their problems are causing cracks in the family relationships.
Then all three of the girls are separately reminded of an incident that took place on the day of Annabel's ninth birthday party. The incident is important to each of the girls for different reasons, and they each remember it differently. Annabel reflects "So many versions of just one memory, and yet none of them were right or wrong. Instead, they were all pieces. Only when fitted together, edge to edge, could they even begin to tell the whole story." (p. 236). And to me, this exemplifies families - everyone in the family remembers things or experiences them slightly differently. It is the mosaic that makes the whole picture. Even this novel isn't the whole story of the family. Thinking about the family portrait I mentioned earlier, Annabel realizes "...that was just one day, one shot. In the time since, we had arranged and rearranged ourselves so many times...All i had to do was ask, and I, too, would be easily brought back, surrounded and immersed, finding myself safe, somewhere in between." (p. 353). In this novel, the sisters are reunited through the ways they change. They grow together, instead of apart.
While in the prep school Cora and Jamie send her to, Ruby is given an assignment. She must define a word pulled out of a jar, and the word Ruby pulls out is 'family'. What Ruby learns about herself, the family she was born into, and the family she creates through this extended assignment. In this novel, Dessen creates a mother who isn't very likable. In fact, while Ruby sees some of her mother's flaws, she works around them, mostly because she is a minor and has to cope with her mother. As the book progresses and Ruby settles into a different life and family, the reader begins to realize how at her best, Ruby's mother was dysfunctional. At her worst, she was addicted and abusive. It is hard for me as a mother to read about Ruby's recollections of her mother. But that was Ruby's life and she made it work until it doesn't work anymore.
Finally, part of Ruby's realization about family pulls together these disparate lives she has been living - the poor, dysfunctional barely-making-it life, and the rich, comfortable, healthy life she lives now. Ruby thinks "What is family? They were the people who claimed you. In good, in bad, in parts or in whole, they were the ones who showed up, who stayed in there, regardless..." (p. 400). Ruby isn't perfect - after all, she has lived a life that has made her tough and resilient, but also suspicious and untrusting. But she has found a perfect way to balance the family she has with the family she has come from in a way that works for her.
Auden has always felt that "school was my solace, and studying let me escape, allowing me to live a thousand vicarious lives." (p. 9). She has spent her whole life trying to get her parents' attention and their approval by rigidly sticking to academic success. After all, both of her parents have succeeded in the academic world. This summer she is beginning to realize that while she spent all this time studying, she was missing doing all the things regular kids do. She doesn't have a lot of friends - she studied too hard for that. And Auden hasn't had a food fight, gone to a party. This summer in Colby, she is beginning to understand the freedom that comes from not living up to anyone's expectations.
One of the things that is made most clear in this Dessen novel is how teenagers, those getting ready to spread their wings, begin to change how they see their parents. But Auden, who has grown up hearing stories her mother has told about her father, begins to experience her parents' flaws firsthand. Her mother told Auden about her stepmother, Heidi, "' I just hope she's not expecting your father to be of much help,' she said...'I was lucky if he changed a diaper every once in a while.'" (p. 13). After Heidi and Auden's father have a fight, Auden realizes "My dad might have made an effort to sound like he would compromise. But again, he had gotten his way." (p. 216). And Auden's mother doesn't like how Auden is spreading her wings this summer either: "'I spend eighteen years teaching you about the importance of taking yourself seriously, and in a matter of weeks you're wearing pink bikinis and totally boy crazy.'" (. 252). Auden has to learn how to become herself, which involves learning to see her relationship with her parents as it is and as it might become.
Mclean has taken her father's side in the divorce, no matter how much he insists that she spend time with her mother and her now-husband. After spending some time with her mom, Mclean begins to realize that maybe keeping herself away from her mom for so long has hurt more than she thought. "I must have seemed like such a stranger to her...both of us wading through this limbo world between what we'd been and what we might be. Like seeing her from a distance earlier, this thought made me unexpectedly sad.." (p. 183-4). Mclean, too, must come to terms with what has happened between her parents. Of course, as an adult, I know that divorce isn't just one person's fault. Mclean has to see this for herself, though, as part of the process of growing up.
Finally, The Moon and More. I don't want to say anything much about it, since I read it before its publication date in June. I'll just say that in this novel, Emaline has an unusual family structure, too. She has grown up in an extended step-family, with stepsisters who she works with in a daily basis. Emaline hasn't had much contact with her biological father until this summer. Her interactions with both parts of her family tugged at my heart. It is a great book, one that combines some of the best of Sarah Dessen's themes with some new ideas.
Finally, I'll end with a line from one of Frances & Gloria's current favorite movies, Hotel Transylvania, which also has a teenager spreading her wings in it. "Children have to discover things for themselves. They'll stumble and fall, laugh and cry, but such is life." Part of discovering things for themselves is seeing their families for what they really are, not just what they have always hoped they might be.
Just Listen. Sarah Dessen. Viking, 2006.
Lock & Key. Sarah Dessen. Speak: Penguin, 2008.
Along for the Ride. Sarah Dessen. Speak: Penguin, 2009.
What Happened to Goodbye. Sarah Dessen. Viking, 2011.
The Moon and More. Sarah Dessen. Viking, 2013.
Just Listen and Lock & Key borrowed from Lewis & Clark Library, Along for the Ride and What Happened to Goodbye from personal collection. The Moon and More read in Advanced Readers Copy.
Saturday, February 2, 2013
Confessions of the Sullivan Sisters
I am an inveterate reader, and as I've mentioned on this blog before, it often gets me into trouble. I have overdue books that I have to read quickly before returning them. I'm always paying overdue fines. I sometimes (gasp!) let my girls watch movies because I can't stop reading something I really like long enough to play ball outside. So this week I've been racing through a few overdue teen books, including some nonfiction. But I saved Confessions of the Sullivan Sisters for last, and I'm glad I did. I read a review of it in the Sept./Oct. 2010 Horn Book and I had read Standiford's last book, How to Say Goodbye in Robot, earlier this fall, and really liked it. This one was even better.
The story begins at Christmas in the Sullivans' Baltimore home. There are six Sullivan children, and straight off the bat, you can tell this family is a little quirkier than most. All the kids have nicknames - Norrie, Takey, Sassy - that don't seem to hint at their real name. They call their mother by her first name, and call their father Daddy-O. The girls drive around in an old baby blue Mercedes, and each child moves into the coveted tower room before they go off to college. But when they go to their grandmother's house for Christmas dinner, things get a little weirder.
Their grandmother, whom they call Almighty, states that one of the Sullivan children has deeply offended her recently, and if a written confession is not in her hands by New Year's Eve, she will cut them all out of her will. No one is sure which Sullivan child has offended her, but it seems most likely that it is one of the teenage Sullivan sisters. Each of them believes they have done it, and they each write their own confessions. Each of the girls has been very busy that fall, and as their stories unfold, it seems possible that they are the one to offend Almighty.
The confessions are the strength of the book. They begin with Norrie (short for Norris, if you are wondering). Norrie is a senior in high school who signs up for a speed reading class at Johns Hopkins early that fall. It is when she meets a graduate student in her class that Norrie, who has always been responsible and sweet, begins to change. The big event looming over Norrie's fall is her December Cotillion, which is a very fancy party to introduce young ladies to society. Her family, especially Almighty, expects her to go and perform admirably at Cotillion, including having a suitable, society date. But is this what Norrie wants? Is she able to do it for her family? I suspect you know the answer to that question, or we wouldn't be reading Norrie's confession.
Jane and Sassy are Norrie's two younger sisters (but both in high school). They are also in trouble with Almighty this Christmas. Parts of their confessions are interwoven through Norrie's, but each girl has a chance to speak for herself. What's interesting to me about all three girls is that these may not be the kinds of confessions you are expecting. None of the three of them are sleeping around, drinking or taking drugs. They aren't stealing or breaking the law. Indeed, to most of us, they seem like good girls.
But not to their grandmother, Almighty. Part of the problem is that no one is exactly sure what they've done to make Almighty angry, One of the biggest problems in this book is the gap between the girls' lives and Almighty's expectations. In their own way, each one of the girls is pushing back against Almighty's society rules. None of them really want to go to Cotillion, but feel obligated to do so by Almighty's power and influence in their family. It all comes down to money. Obviously things have changed since Almighty was their age, when girls did not stand up for themselves and what they wanted. And all three of the Sullivans feel they cannot escape her disapproval, even though they want to live their own lives.
I also wanted to mention the town of Baltimore. Standiford's other book, How to Say Goodbye in Robot, is also set in Baltimore. I love the settings in both of these books, and I felt like Baltimore was almost another character in the book. The book is full of Baltimore locations, including shops, streets and of course Johns Hopkins. It is evident that Standiford loves Baltimore, and it really comes through in this book. The book wouldn't have had the same atmosphere set in New York City or even Washington DC.
I will say this about the Sullivan sisters - I couldn't get enough of them. I wanted to hear what happened next to all of them, even if it is just their everyday life. I couldn't bear to say goodbye to them. So when their confessions ended, I was left feeling deflated by the ending of the book. I don't want to spoil it, because I definitely recommend this book. But I just felt the ending didn't have all the thoughtfulness Standiford put into creating the Sullivan family's lives. But I'll still beg her to write more about them, because I loved these girls.
Confessions of the Sullivan Sisters. Natalie Standiford. Scholastic, 2010.
borrowed from Lewis & Clark library
Their grandmother, whom they call Almighty, states that one of the Sullivan children has deeply offended her recently, and if a written confession is not in her hands by New Year's Eve, she will cut them all out of her will. No one is sure which Sullivan child has offended her, but it seems most likely that it is one of the teenage Sullivan sisters. Each of them believes they have done it, and they each write their own confessions. Each of the girls has been very busy that fall, and as their stories unfold, it seems possible that they are the one to offend Almighty.
The confessions are the strength of the book. They begin with Norrie (short for Norris, if you are wondering). Norrie is a senior in high school who signs up for a speed reading class at Johns Hopkins early that fall. It is when she meets a graduate student in her class that Norrie, who has always been responsible and sweet, begins to change. The big event looming over Norrie's fall is her December Cotillion, which is a very fancy party to introduce young ladies to society. Her family, especially Almighty, expects her to go and perform admirably at Cotillion, including having a suitable, society date. But is this what Norrie wants? Is she able to do it for her family? I suspect you know the answer to that question, or we wouldn't be reading Norrie's confession.
Jane and Sassy are Norrie's two younger sisters (but both in high school). They are also in trouble with Almighty this Christmas. Parts of their confessions are interwoven through Norrie's, but each girl has a chance to speak for herself. What's interesting to me about all three girls is that these may not be the kinds of confessions you are expecting. None of the three of them are sleeping around, drinking or taking drugs. They aren't stealing or breaking the law. Indeed, to most of us, they seem like good girls.
But not to their grandmother, Almighty. Part of the problem is that no one is exactly sure what they've done to make Almighty angry, One of the biggest problems in this book is the gap between the girls' lives and Almighty's expectations. In their own way, each one of the girls is pushing back against Almighty's society rules. None of them really want to go to Cotillion, but feel obligated to do so by Almighty's power and influence in their family. It all comes down to money. Obviously things have changed since Almighty was their age, when girls did not stand up for themselves and what they wanted. And all three of the Sullivans feel they cannot escape her disapproval, even though they want to live their own lives.
I also wanted to mention the town of Baltimore. Standiford's other book, How to Say Goodbye in Robot, is also set in Baltimore. I love the settings in both of these books, and I felt like Baltimore was almost another character in the book. The book is full of Baltimore locations, including shops, streets and of course Johns Hopkins. It is evident that Standiford loves Baltimore, and it really comes through in this book. The book wouldn't have had the same atmosphere set in New York City or even Washington DC.
I will say this about the Sullivan sisters - I couldn't get enough of them. I wanted to hear what happened next to all of them, even if it is just their everyday life. I couldn't bear to say goodbye to them. So when their confessions ended, I was left feeling deflated by the ending of the book. I don't want to spoil it, because I definitely recommend this book. But I just felt the ending didn't have all the thoughtfulness Standiford put into creating the Sullivan family's lives. But I'll still beg her to write more about them, because I loved these girls.
Confessions of the Sullivan Sisters. Natalie Standiford. Scholastic, 2010.
borrowed from Lewis & Clark library
Saturday, September 10, 2011
Hold Me Closer, Necromancer
I was going to start this post in the same way I start many posts. I tend to tell you what I don’t like about a genre and then tell you about an exception. And just maybe I’ve been wrong about what I really like. Maybe what I like isn’t a particular genre, I really just like a well-written book and a good plot.
Hold Me Closer, Necromancer was on last year’s William C. Morris Debut YA Award shortlist. I finally got around to reading it recently. I am tired of supernatural books being all the rage, and this advertises its supernaturality right in the title. It seems like every other book coming out this year is supernatural fiction. On my nightstand right now I have a historical fiction title concerning magic, a book about werewolves and an adult title about vampires…and I’m not actively seeking out supernatural fiction! So it has to be pretty special for me to really feel like it’s worth bringing to your attention.
Sam begins this book working in a fast food restaurant. He has friends, but he’s always felt different than everyone else. Sam (whose real name is Samhain) has dropped out of college and has given up trying to find his “thing” in life. But then an ill-fated game of potato hockey in the parking lot brings a very creepy man into the restaurant. The man starts accusing Sam of being and doing things Sam doesn’t understand. Is it coincidence that the pouch of herbs Sam’s mother gave him, that he always wears around his neck, has broken that night?
One of my teen librarian friends says that Sam is one of the hottest teen male characters this year, and maybe that will get some of you to pick up the book. It’s set in Seattle (where the author is from) and maybe that will get some of you to read it too. Here’s what I think makes this book unputdownable…everything. Sam is a great character. Although he is a slacker, and can’t seem to find his groove in life, Sam is witty and clever. He has a group of friends who are willing to just let him be himself – they are just along for the ride. He has already dropped out of college, making him older than the normal teen hero, but he does have the typical teen problems. He is trying to find himself, and nothing has ever seemed right. Sam is human and relatable, even though he can commune with the dead. A creepy situation, but not a creepy guy.
I dare you not to hum along to Elton John’s “Tiny Dancer” while you read this. That’s not the only song title or lyric that McBride uses in a clever way in this novel. All of the chapter titles are from songs as well. They fit each chapter’s contents perfectly – they are witty and smart. I can’t imagine how long it must have taken to come up with the perfect matches.
One of the other things that makes this novel stand out is its fresh take on the supernatural. As the book goes on, many of the themes emerge that are in other supernatural books – uncovering the main character’s latent power, the battle between good and evil. But McBride’s talent is in making Sam’s journey seem fresh and unlike what we have read before. Sure, there is a Council, made up of representatives from several families – werewolves, the fey, necromancers, witches. But it’s the characters within these families that make this novel interesting. All of these characters are slightly quirky, but are strong, too. They are willing to fight for what they love. Sam’s friends fight to save him from a powerful necromancer because he is important to them – which says something about all of them.
And really, there is (among other hilarious/gross touches) a severed talking head and a zombie panda in this book. It’s got the gore and death and action you would expect from a supernatural book. It is a real winner, so pick it up today, especially if you love the supernatural. I have to return it, though, to get “Tiny Dancer” out of my head.
Hold Me Closer, Necromancer. Lish McBride. Henry Holt, 2010.
Sunday, April 10, 2011
Trash
One of the things that I love about School Library Journal's Battle of the Books is that I've read things that I would not have read otherwise. When I heard about Trash, it did not seem like my kind of book - I am not always an enthusiastic reader of books with teenage boy protagonists. I rarely connect with teenage boy characters, so it has to take some special characters for me to get past that. But this book was different from the first page.
Raphael and Gardo are sorting trash, on the top of a large mountain of refuse in a landfill. Suddenly something slips out of a bag - a wallet with ID, a key and a substantial amount of cash. To Raphael and Gardo, who live in the landfill in a sort of scrabbling, hand-to-mouth existence, the cash is most important. But when the police come looking for that same wallet, Raphael and Gardo know they have unearthed something much more valuable than they first thought.
They enlist one other boy, a loner known as Rat, to keep their secret. These boys have already kept the wallet a secret from their neighbors because of the amount of cash. Raphael and Gardo know that cash makes them vulnerable in their dumpster society. They could be robbed or killed over it. In their neighborhood (called Behala), people never have any money at all - they mostly use recyclables or found trash to barter for food and supplies. This is a bleak, hopeless society. The adults in Behala are just barely surviving. Raphael, Gardo and Rat, however, are still young enough to have a slim glimmer of hope. And that is enough to allow them to set off on a quest to solve the mystery behind the wallet.
Mulligan has created an incredible story. These boys have nothing - no money, little family, even less education. And yet they are resilient, clever, street-smart. The three are able to get information because they have always lived by their wits, so they are observant and have perfected being invisible to the adults around them. Perhaps only this particular group of boys would have this combination of daring and smarts that allows them to solve this mystery. Most teen boys wouldn't be curious about the rest of the contents of the wallet, probably discarding them while keeping the cash. Or they might have bowed to authority and handed over the wallet to the police when they came looking for it.
This is an adventure story at heart, but it is combined with the mystery that unfolds in front of the boys. At times, the action is heart-stopping - will the boys be caught by the police before they uncover a mystery that hints at political corruption? Mulligan keeps the tension ratcheted up at an unendurable level, and you wonder how these poor, uneducated boys can possibly survive.
One other unique thing about Mulligan's novel is the voices - each of the boys have chapters told through their eyes, and they all have very different ways of looking at this situation. They all see each other's strengths and weaknesses, and work together as a seamless partnership. It is truly miraculous that these boys have the wherewithal to not only survive their bleak upbringings but to hold out hope for a better life.
Trash. Andy Mulligan. David Fickling Books: Random House, 2010.
personal copy
They enlist one other boy, a loner known as Rat, to keep their secret. These boys have already kept the wallet a secret from their neighbors because of the amount of cash. Raphael and Gardo know that cash makes them vulnerable in their dumpster society. They could be robbed or killed over it. In their neighborhood (called Behala), people never have any money at all - they mostly use recyclables or found trash to barter for food and supplies. This is a bleak, hopeless society. The adults in Behala are just barely surviving. Raphael, Gardo and Rat, however, are still young enough to have a slim glimmer of hope. And that is enough to allow them to set off on a quest to solve the mystery behind the wallet.
Mulligan has created an incredible story. These boys have nothing - no money, little family, even less education. And yet they are resilient, clever, street-smart. The three are able to get information because they have always lived by their wits, so they are observant and have perfected being invisible to the adults around them. Perhaps only this particular group of boys would have this combination of daring and smarts that allows them to solve this mystery. Most teen boys wouldn't be curious about the rest of the contents of the wallet, probably discarding them while keeping the cash. Or they might have bowed to authority and handed over the wallet to the police when they came looking for it.
This is an adventure story at heart, but it is combined with the mystery that unfolds in front of the boys. At times, the action is heart-stopping - will the boys be caught by the police before they uncover a mystery that hints at political corruption? Mulligan keeps the tension ratcheted up at an unendurable level, and you wonder how these poor, uneducated boys can possibly survive.
One other unique thing about Mulligan's novel is the voices - each of the boys have chapters told through their eyes, and they all have very different ways of looking at this situation. They all see each other's strengths and weaknesses, and work together as a seamless partnership. It is truly miraculous that these boys have the wherewithal to not only survive their bleak upbringings but to hold out hope for a better life.
Trash. Andy Mulligan. David Fickling Books: Random House, 2010.
personal copy
Sunday, March 6, 2011
Guardian of the Dead
Guardian of the Dead was on the William C. Morris YA Debut Award shortlist this year, so it went on my reading list. I had read a review of the book a few months ago, when I was still ordering books for the library, and it seemed intriguing. It begins in a boarding school, and I am a total sucker for boarding school books. The book also takes place on New Zealand, and the information about Maori culture and society brings a new life to supernatural fiction.
Ellie is at boarding school because her parents are on a year-long trip. She is asked by a friend to help out in a nearby production of "A Midsummer's Night Dream" because she has tae kwon do experience and can help with the fight scenes. It is through this play that she begins to become aware that some things around her are not adding up. There's a mysterious boy who keeps confusing her, a woman without pupils, and a serial killer who is stealing people's eyes.
Her connection with the mysterious boy, Mark, becomes deeper as more of her own latent power is awakened. This connects her as well to the world Mark represents - the world on the other side. The biggest threat to this world comes from the patupaiarehe - beings who live in the mists around the island and are yearning to become immortal. But if they gain immortality, it will threaten to bring destruction to all of New Zealand.
I felt like this book was unique in several ways. First of all, the introduction to Maori culture and mythology is something that American readers don't have exposure to. But Healey does a terrific job of giving the context to the unfamiliar language and cultural norms. There is also a brief glossary of Maori terms that are used throughout New Zealand so that readers can refer to it - even non-Maori speakers use these terms regularly. This book is strongly rooted in Maori mythology, but Healey draws parallels between Maori, Greek and Roman mythologies. Ellie is a Classics student, so she explains the parallels to readers in a natural way.
Above all, this book is a suspenseful adventure. It is complex, with many layers of story and characters. And most importantly for me, it is intelligent. I am not a big fan of supernatural fiction, so the addition of smart characters who are not afraid to be smart makes the supernatural more palatable. Ellie is not the sort of female main character who will dither and wring her hands. She's scared and unsure at times, but she is also exploring her power and trying to find her way through what is rapidly becoming a nightmare.
This is a really strong, smart book - I recommend it to you!
Guardian of the Dead. Karen Healey. Little, Brown and Co., 2010.
borrowed from Lewis & Clark library
Saturday, November 27, 2010
Lockdown
I am appreciating the National Book Award finalists this year because in reading them, I am breaking out of my comfort zone, just a little. In my previous life as a teen librarian, Lockdown was the kind of book that I would have recommended to teens, especially boys. I would have a general idea of what it was about ("Reese is a teen in juvenile detention, trying to survive until his release date."), but I would have missed out on an extremely thought-provoking novel.
Reese committed a burglary two years ago, stealing prescription pads from a doctor's office. At the beginning of the novel, Reese has just basically been surviving in juvenile detention. There isn't a lot of evidence that he has changed through this experience so far, but he hasn't gotten any worse, either. His family, on the other hand, is not doing so well. Reese was living with his mother, who is addicted to drugs. His older brother is a drug dealer and has also already been in juvenile detention. Reese's young sister has miraculously escaped all the trouble for now, and is holding out the only hope Reese can see.
While Reese's life on the outside is full of despair, his life on the inside is no better. There are frequent lockdowns on his unit, and the staff is cruel to the inmates. Reese's harsh reality is evident from the very beginning of the book. There are the title lockdowns - every inmate in their own cells, solitary detention, physical checks whenever an inmate has visitors or leaves the building, gangs... Myers does not shy away from the grittiness of juvenile detention, almost as a warning that there is nothing cool about prison. There is no humanity, except for the social worker on the unit who gets Reese a job working in a nursing home to help rehabilitate him.
One of the most striking things about Reese is the dilemma that he finds himself in. The drug dealer that he sold the prescription pads to blames Reese for someone's drug overdose. The police confront him in detention and tell him that he has three days to decide whether he will plead guilty or stand trial for a crime he didn't commit. Reese believes that if he has to stand trial, the jurors will never believe that he is innocent, so he feels that he must plead guilty. This is the source of much of the novel's tension - that Reese has no option because he has already been found guilty of a crime. You can feel his panic and worry for him as he contemplates his adult life spent in prison.
This is what Myers is best at - communicating the utter lack of possibility in the life of these prison inmates. The social worker continually reminds Reese that most of the young adults in juvenile detention will become adult prisoners. There is very little possibility for them in the real world, and as Reese realizes, they will often be blamed for additional crimes whether they were involved or not. It takes a strong person to rise above the reality. Is Reese that man?
This is a strong book by Myers. Since the National Book Award ceremony has already taken place, I know it didn't win. But Reese is a character full of the dichotomy of dreams and reality - one who doesn't have a lot of hope and yet chips out a small piece of hope for himself. Ultimately he fins a small measure of redemption.
Lockdown. Walter Dean Myers. Amistad: HarperCollins, 2010. Borrowed from Lewis & Clark Library
While Reese's life on the outside is full of despair, his life on the inside is no better. There are frequent lockdowns on his unit, and the staff is cruel to the inmates. Reese's harsh reality is evident from the very beginning of the book. There are the title lockdowns - every inmate in their own cells, solitary detention, physical checks whenever an inmate has visitors or leaves the building, gangs... Myers does not shy away from the grittiness of juvenile detention, almost as a warning that there is nothing cool about prison. There is no humanity, except for the social worker on the unit who gets Reese a job working in a nursing home to help rehabilitate him.
One of the most striking things about Reese is the dilemma that he finds himself in. The drug dealer that he sold the prescription pads to blames Reese for someone's drug overdose. The police confront him in detention and tell him that he has three days to decide whether he will plead guilty or stand trial for a crime he didn't commit. Reese believes that if he has to stand trial, the jurors will never believe that he is innocent, so he feels that he must plead guilty. This is the source of much of the novel's tension - that Reese has no option because he has already been found guilty of a crime. You can feel his panic and worry for him as he contemplates his adult life spent in prison.
This is what Myers is best at - communicating the utter lack of possibility in the life of these prison inmates. The social worker continually reminds Reese that most of the young adults in juvenile detention will become adult prisoners. There is very little possibility for them in the real world, and as Reese realizes, they will often be blamed for additional crimes whether they were involved or not. It takes a strong person to rise above the reality. Is Reese that man?
This is a strong book by Myers. Since the National Book Award ceremony has already taken place, I know it didn't win. But Reese is a character full of the dichotomy of dreams and reality - one who doesn't have a lot of hope and yet chips out a small piece of hope for himself. Ultimately he fins a small measure of redemption.
Lockdown. Walter Dean Myers. Amistad: HarperCollins, 2010. Borrowed from Lewis & Clark Library
Friday, November 12, 2010
Ship Breaker
Ship Breaker is a National Book Award finalist in Young People's Literature, and while it had been on my radar since the beginning of the summer, it didn't seem like the kind of book I'd be interested in, so I let it pass by. But I decided I wanted to read all the finalists, and I started with Ship Breaker. Boy, was I wrong about it not being my kind of book.
The book opens with Nailer working light crew, which entails sliding through small ducts in old ships, trying to strip the ship of anything usable. As the first chapters unfold, readers become aware of how hard Nailer's life is, with an abusive father and violence and drugs pervading the harsh society. There are small sparks of hope in his life, including his friend Pima and her strong mother, but Nailer is facing an uncertain future. Eventually he will become too small to go through the ductwork, and will have to find another way to earn what little money he can. But suddenly a "city killer" storm rips through his beach community, turning Nailer's life upside down. He discovers a hydrofoil ship which has wrecked up the coast from his shack. Nailer and Pima go to look for scavenge on the ship, and discover a rich girl, barely alive. What Nailer and Pima do next goes to the core of who they really are.
This summary sounds compelling, but it doesn't do justice to the plot of this novel. At heart, this is an adventure story and things happen to Nailer at a rapid pace. And once you're sucked in to the story, Bacigalupi does not let the suspense slack off. It is a heart-stopping pace, with Nailer, Pima and the rich girl (Nita) escaping both Nailer's abusive father and other pursuers in an effort to get Nita back to her family. There were times I could not stop reading, thinking "I should really stop - oh, I'll just read one more chapter...". You want to see Nailer and Nita safe, but it seems that their society has other ideas.
Bacigalupi's talent is science fiction, and while this is an adventure story, the background is definitely sci-fi. I really hate the world-building part of a science fiction novel - I don't like the feeling of uncertainty and not understanding what is going on. Ship Breaker is not like this. There are enough familiar elements to guide readers and the world-building is introduced slowly and in context. The book takes place off the Gulf Coast, sometime in the future. Technology has continued to advance, including clipper ships that can travel incredibly fast due to an ingenious hydrofoil system. But all of the technology, including genetically enhanced half-men and weaponry is accessible to teen readers and doesn't bog down the plot.
I do feel obligated to talk about the violence in this book. While some of the violence is drug-fueled (Nailer's father is a druggie and often beats Nailer while high), much of the violence is necessary as different factions struggle for power in this shipping-based society. However, life for Nailer is full of violence, even if he is not comfortable with it. This ties into some of the current topics that Bacigalupi weaves into this story, including the wide gap between rich and poor in this society. There is also prejudice between various groups and climate control (most of New Orleans is underwater now). Basically, life for Nailer has always just been about survival, and suddenly he is fighting for more than he ever dreamed possible.
I also have to say that I am relieved for once that there is not an obvious opening for a sequel. It seems like every great book lately has an ending which will lead to a trilogy, and this ending was a breath of fresh air.
I think this is a great National Book Award finalist, and I am glad I made the effort to read it. The pacing, the combination of science fiction and adventure, and most of all the characters made it worth my while. Well written.
Ship Breaker. Paolo Bacigalupi. Little, Brown and Co., 2010. Borrowed from the Lewis and Clark library
Monday, October 11, 2010
All We Know of Love
Natalie has lived with her father for the past four years, four months and fifteen days. Since the day her mother walked out the door in the middle of a sentence and never looked back. This has, of course, totally shaped the teenager Natalie has become. She is fairly disconnected from her father and has stopped sharing anything real about herself with anyone. Instead she gives each of the people in her life (including her best friend and boyfriend) little glimpses of herself. Natalie is surely heading for trouble when she lies to her father about going on a trip with her best friend. Instead she hops on a bus down the East Coast to ask her mother to complete the sentence she never finished – it was something about love.
Road trips are a classic theme in young adult literature (off the top of my head, one of my favorites is in An Abundance of Katherines). Many coming of age stories happen during road trips, as the road seems to give teenagers the freedom to really discover themselves, especially when there are no parents around to tell them what to do and how to do it. All We Know of Love takes place during the 24 hour trip to St. Augustine, Florida. Natalie doesn’t really plan this trip extensively, and so she has little money, no food, and a cell phone rapidly running out of battery when she leaves. Her decision not to buy snacks in the Stamford, Connecticut bus station leads to a side trip through Maryland when her bus leaves her stranded at a small diner. While Natalie is certainly on her own on this trip, she is not without adults to help her complete her journey.
The whole novel is about love – between Natalie and her parents, between Natalie and her best friend Sarah, between Natalie and her boyfriend, Adam. But I especially like how Baskin gives us a look into other characters’ perspectives on love. Each of the characters who touch Natalie’s life on this trip reflects on love within different chapters along her journey. Natalie may not ever hear their backstory, but we are privy to some of it. For instance, there is the young runaway in the Baltimore bus station, whose younger sister has died, leaving her feeling confused and unloved. These short narratives within Natalie’s journey influence how we continue to read Natalie’s story. This is a creative way to keep the story from being told wholly from Natalie’s perspective, thus limiting our understanding of love to Natalie’s understanding. These characters are all memorable and unique, and add layers to Natalie’s journey.
Another addition to our understanding of Natalie’s trip are the quotes at the beginning of each chapter. Each quote is about love, but also gives a subtle hint about what will take place . For example, a dictionary quote on the connection between friendship and love leads a chapter where Natalie betrays her best friend for her boyfriend, and another character reminisces about an old friendship.
This book is delicately written and beautifully told. You can’t help reading to find out not only what will happen with Natalie’s mother at the end of her journey, but also if Natalie will find herself. I haven’t really written about Natalie’s relationship with her older, manipulative boyfriend, but you really root for Natalie to recognize her own desperation and arrive at a new place of strength. At the end of her journey, Natalie doesn’t get the answers she expects, but it is definitely worth the trip.
All We Know of Love - Nora Raleigh Baskin. Candlewick, 2008. Borrowed from Lewis & Clark Library.
Sunday, September 5, 2010
Mockingjay!
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