Readathon: Updates One and Two

YAY!  IT HAS BEGUN!


1)Where are you reading from today?


My students' midterms!  And some theory on the teaching of writing.  (It's not quite my usual fun reading, but it must be done.  And if I'm good, I can pick up some fiction later.

2)Three random facts about me…


Erm...1.  I love listening to This American Life.  I'm catching up on old episodes now.
2.  My cat is lying across my feet, trapping me in place.  (I think this will help to keep me reading)
3.  Part of my readathon may involve rocking to the audiobook of Chime.

3)How many books do you have in your TBR pile for the next 24 hours?


More than I can actually read in 24 hours.

4)Do you have any goals for the read-a-thon (i.e. number of books, number of pages, number of hours, or number of comments on blogs)?


Just to do more reading than I've had time for over the last several weeks.

5)If you’re a veteran read-a-thoner, any advice for people doing this for the first time?


Mix in some graphic novels, short stories, articles, picturebooks or other short texts to keep you motivated.  SRSLY!  It helps!


LET THE FUN BEGIN!

UPDATE TWO:  


I'm still here and I'm still reading!  So, far I did some reading that was prep-work for the classes I teach next week.  


Part of what I have been preparing for my students is a discussion of young adult fiction book covers and they way certain themes, colors,images seem to trend in and out.  There have been blog posts about this in the past:  how dark covers are, the focus on faces, puffy dresses, flowers, etc.


The cover trend I'm adding to the list is underwater scenes (AKA girls drowning):

Now I'm going to switch directions and focus on some grading.  It's proven to be a VERY slow process.


Wish me luck!

REVIEW: Saint Training

Fixmer, E.  (2010).  Saint Training.  Grand Rapids, MI:  Zonderkidz.

233 pages.


Appetizer:  It's the spring of 1967 and sixth grader Mary Clare O'Brian has begun to write letters to the Mother Superior of a convent asking for advice.  Mary Clare has the goal of becoming a saint.  But with all the daily complications of having to look after her many brothers and sisters, her mother's fascination with reading The Feminine Mystique and a competition to write an essay on "What a religious vocation means to me...," Mary Clare is having trouble living up to her saintly aspirations.

She starts to realize how complicated life can be.  Not only in terms of being good, but also in terms of her own family.  Her mom, who is pregnant for the umpteenth time, wants to do other work than caring for her many kids at home and Mary Clare is left to do a lot of the work of caring for her siblings and wondering how her family can afford to care for another child.  One of her brothers wants to enlist to go to Vietnam with his best friend, while another older brother wants to get status as a conscientious objector to the war.

The author, Elizabeth Fixmer, does an excellent job of presenting Mary Clare's faith as she goes from blind obedience and making deals with God to questioning aspects of Catholicism, earning "saint points" and beginning to view how complicated issues of faith in the real world can be.

For a reader who might not be very religious, a lot of the Catholicism could be a little overwhelming.  I also felt like an older reader or adult would have to explain a bit about feminism for a younger reader to get the book.  (In fact, the only aspect of this book that might not have to be discussed, is the historical setting.  This book was a little too history--light for my personal tastes.  Especially since the opening paragraph is about racial tensions and how Mary Clare imagined herself providing support to a black student she imagined being integrated at her Catholic school.  I felt like a promise made early in the story was dropped, allowed to roll under a chair and forgotten until the very end.)

My favorite part of Saint Training was the exchange of letters between Mary Clare and Sister Monica.  As the story continued, Mary Clare began to ask a lot of important questions.  I found this very engaging.

But toward the end of the book, this also became frustrating, because Mary Clare revealed major plot developments in her letters without them being mentioned in the narration before.  I found myself flipping back and forth between pages, wondering if I had missed something.

Overall, I liked that Saint Training took on issues of faith and social justice.  I liked Mary Clare's childlike faith and the way that she took on adult concerns and worries over her family.  But I did find some of the religion and jumps in the narrative to be a bit overwhelming at times.


Dinner Conversation:

"March 25, 1967

Dear Reverend Mother.

My name is Mary Clare O'Brian.  I am in sixth grade and I am writing because I want to become a Good Shepherd nun.  I like the Good Shepherd nuns best because you work with unwed mothers and their babies.  I love little babies." (p. 7)

"Mary Clare finished her Social Studies test and turned it upside down to wait for the rest of the class. It was easy, mostly easy, and on the subject that Mary Clare had heard a lot about at home around the dinner table:  civil rights.  She couldn't believe that Negroes had to sit on the back of the bus in the South and even drink from different water fountains.  They were fighting for basic rights, especially the right to vote.  Mary Clare liked to imagine that a Negro girl entered her very class at Saint Maria Goretti School. She would show her around, become her friend, even hold the drinking fountain on for her.
Now her face scrunched into a yawn she fought to control.  She was tired from being up almost all night--first listening to her parents fight, then praying for the perfect plan to make things better for her family.  After she came up with the perfect plan, she couldn't sleep at all.
She was going to become a saint."  (p. 11)

"Lord, help my family.  Please, please give us enough money so Mom and Dad can be happy again.
She stopped.  She was sick of this prayer.  Why wasn't God answering?  HE used to answer her prayers all the time."  (p. 15)

"Now she knew the problem:  God would only listen to her if her soul was pure.  If she was going to make her mother happy again, she would have to be a saint right away.
She made a plan.  She would study, she would practice saint-like behavior, and she would become a nun.  Many of the girl saints had been nuns before being sainted, so she figured becoming a nun was the perfect stepping stone to her real goal.  She'd be so darned good she wouldn't have a thing to confess on Saturdays.
Mary Clare explained the deal to God.  If you take care of my family--give them enough money, make my parents happy...I'll become a saint.  She repeated it several times in case it was hard for God to hear through all of her sins." (p. 16)

"Don't just tell them what you think they want to hear, Mary Clare.  Don't get into the roles everybody expects from a woman--where your identity is what the Church tells you it should be.  'God's servant, and God's bride'...that's all part of the feminine mystique," she said.  "Everybody knows what nuns do and the vows they take.  Go inside your heart and tell them who you are."
Mary Clare was confused.  She didn't know what the feminine mystique was, and she was pretty sure that to win this contest she had to pretty much say what the judges wanted to hear, but she did want to be real."  (p. 79)


Tasty Rating:  !!!

REVIEW: TTYL

Myracle, L.  (2004).  ttyl.  New York:  Amulet Books.

209 pages.


Appetizer:  The first in an often censored series, ttyl chronicles the IM messages between Zoe, Angela and Maddie; three best friends who are trying to navigate the start of their sophomore year.

Zoe is dealing with an overbearing mother as she explores her spirituality by attending church with her favorite teacher, who may have his own intentions by spending time with her.  Angela is navigating a romantic relationship:  whether she can trust her new boyfriend, Rob, and whether he is "the one" to have sex with for the first time.  Maddie, the most pessimistic of the three, battles the frustration of becoming a frenemy of a popular girl named Jana.  Despite their differing concerns, problems and jealousies, the three girls struggle to maintain their friendship.

From page one, I was impressed by how well Myracle managed to present characterization and differing voices among her three protagonists.  This was helped by each of them typing in different fonts and regularly taking online personality quizzes.  (I remember taking similar quizzes throughout high school.  Oh, memories.)

Despite these efforts, it did take me a little bit of extra time to ease into the story and to figure out characterizations.  I did notice there was a little bit of resistance whenever I had to put the book down.  But each time I picked it back up and eased back into the characterizations, it was hard to stop reading.  (Which is about as good as it gets.)

I decided to finally read ttyl because--alas several weeks too late for banned book week--this was the week to discuss censorship in my literature course.  Since the ttyl series topped the 2009 top-ten list of most challenged books, I'd been curious about its content.  I wondered if it was the fact that the story was structured entirely as instant messages that contributed to the trouble.

It turns out the first book takes on a lot of topics that may be sensitive; like underaged drinking, (mild) dirty humor, female characters being critical of each other and referring to girls they don't like as "sluts," and discussion of pubic hair, lubricant, etc.  At various points, characters contemplate losing their virginity, are critical of religion or consider having a romantic (and creepy!) relationship with a teacher.

I firmly believe the vast majority of fourteen or fifteen-year-olds at the very least have contemplated these issues, overheard discussions or jokes like these, if not discussed them with their friends.

The student-teacher romantic relationship did make me more than a little uncomfortable, especially since (vague spoiler!) the teens don't report the situation to the administration.  But still, it was great that the book included discussion of such a concern and showed how a friend can provide support to a conflicted and confused teenager.

While I think ttyl is a great read for the novel's intended audience, Myracle is also famous for writing some younger, middle grade series.  I could see a parent of a ten-year-old girl who just finished reading Myracle's Eleven and going on to read ttyl getting upset.  I say "parent" intentionally.  TTYL is an unlikely book to be assigned to an entire class, because of this, I think any young reader who has a choice to read it, but isn't ready for its subject matter, will self-censor and put the book down if they're uncomfortable.


Dinner Conversation:

 (p.1)

 (p.3)

  (p. 122)

Tasty Rating:  !!!

REVIEW: Shakespeare Bats Cleanup (It's like a better sequel to Love That Dog than Hate That Cat was! Yay sports + poetry!)

Koertge, R.  (2003).  Shakespeare Bats Cleanup.  Cambridge, MA:  Candlewick Press.

116 pages.


Appetizer:  14-year-old Kevin Boland wants nothing more than to play baseball.  But after he is diagnosed with mono, there's no way he'll be able to play ball or go back to school for a looooooooong time.  Stuck in his room and bored, Kevin is anything but excited when his dad (a writer) gives him a blank notebook.  His dad notes:

"You're gonna have a lot of time on your hands.  Maybe you'll feel like writingsomething down" (p. 1).

And from that, a novel in verse is born.

While stuck in bed and later as he starts to attend baseball games again, Kevin works on writing various forms of poetry; from haiku, to blank verse, to elegies, to sonnets.  What's more, he goes back and revises his poems, showing his process and the importance of revision.  (Yay!  Can I hear a cheer for revision!  Wat Wat!)

Also, as Kevin battles mono and misses playing baseball, both he and his dad are dealing with a much larger loss; that of Kevin's mom.  But as they deal with their grief, Kevin begins to see the possibility of another type of joy:  His first real girlfriend.  A girl named Mira notices that Kevin writes poetry.  Torn between wanting to tell her the truth about what he's writing and not wanting to seem like one of those "sensitive" guys, Kevin tries to figure out how to get to know Mira better.

I'll admit, during the first half of the story, I wasn't too crazy about Shakespeare Bats Cleanup.  Kevin was hung-up on missing baseball and he had rigid ideas about masculinity that didn't exactly rock my world.  Then Mira was introduced.  And I loved her character.  She added a lot of humor and brought out a fun dynamic between Kevin and his father as they start to date.  As Kevin and his dad prepare to pick up Mira to go to a poetry reading, Kevin writes:

Dad comes downstairs in shorts  

and Pumas.  I ask him to change.  On the way

to Mira's he says, "Now I'm nervous."  (p. 82) 

*Smiles*

Plus, Mira and her family added a multicultural dimension to the story.  Kevin, who is white, begins to entertain thoughts of learning Spanish to better communicate with Mira's extended family, some baseball players and to be able to translate poetry by Octavio Paz.

Overall, I felt like Shakespeare Bats Cleanup is a slightly older version of Love That Dog, that will specifically appeal to boys who *still* aren't completely convinced of the awesomeness of poetry.


Apparently there's a sequel, called Shakespeare Makes the Playoffs.  I'll read it...but I'll probably wait for the paperback version, which should be available by mid-March.


Dinner Conversation:


"Then Dad comes in and says, "The doctor
called.  Your tests came back.  You've got
mono."
"So I can't play ball."
He pats my knee.  "You can't even go to
school, Kevin.  You need to take it real easy."
He hands me a journal, one of those marbly
black-and-white ones he likes.
"You're gonna have a lot of time on your
hands.  Maybe you'll feel like writing
something down."  (p. 1)

"Why am I writing down the middle
of the page?
It kind of looks like poetry, but no way
is it poetry.  It's just stuff." (p. 5)

"I'm just going to fool around a little,
see what's what poetry-wise" (p. 5).

"My name is Kevin Boland.
I live in Los Angeles (a suburb, actually).
I'm fourteen years old, I love baseball,
and I haven't got a girlfriend.
I'm just writing because I'm bored.
Thank God nobody's going to read it."  (p. 12)

"That book I've been reading
is big on revision, which means, by
the way, not just doing something over
but seeing it again.  That's kind of cool." (p. 23)

"'I'm a writer.'"  That's a cool thing to say.
I don't mean I am, but I'm not a baseball
player either.
Not anymore."  (p. 28)


Tasty Rating:  !!!

REVIEW: Jenny Green's Killer Junior Year (I was not impressed)

Belasen, A., &; Osborn, J. (2008). Jenny Green's Killer Junior Year.  New York:  Simon Pulse.

284 pages.

So, when I first started typing this review, I accidentally put 'yar' instead of 'year.' As though 11th grader, Jenny, had become a pirate. (Note: I would read that book. I may be out of high school, but I'm still looking for ways to transition to a career in piracy.)

Appetizer: After a sucky sophomore year, Jewish American Princess (or--I kid you not--'Jap' as she prefers to use *shudders*) Jenny Green decides to leave her Long Island public school in the hope of finding cooler people and "the one" (AKA Prince Charming) at boarding school.  She has a good idea of who her prince will be:  a boy named Josh who had transfered previously.

Jenny settles into Molson Academy, navigates having to live in a house of artists/hippies, finds a friend, orchestrates running into her prince, finds a way to cheat in her AP calc class, considers losing her virginity and flirts with her favorite professor.

But all is not perfect.

She starts to realize that Josh may not be as wonderful as she thought he was and after he drunkenly attacks her, Jenny will have to do things she'd never considered before:  become a killer.

But what starts out as self-defense, quickly evolves to murder as other men wrong her.

I wouldn't say I *hated* this book.  I could say I disliked it.  But, I think saying I didn't get it would be gentler.  From the first page, I hated Jenny.  She was shallow and judgmental.  So, when she started killing other characters, with seemingly almost no regret, I was not inclined to care.

Eventually guilt and potential consequences do present themselves, but by then, I was just reading to get the book done.

On top of that, the book repeatedly refers to 9-11 and a potential school shooting at Molson to explain some of Jenny's choices and to imply that the crazy-screwed-up world is somehow contributing to her choices.  While I appreciate the effort to show the subtle pressures influencing Jenny, my reaction as I was reading was just to say "WTF?!  What the heck is this doing in this book?!"  I felt like Jenny Green's Killer Junior Year was attempting to make some cultural or feminist commentary, but I just failed to follow it.

Oh, and this book is supposedly humorous.

I didn't find it very funny.

Was I missing something?

Also, aside from the killing, there are also a handful of pretty sexually explicit scenes.

Dinner Conversation:

"'Twas the end of a long and bitter sophomore year. 'Twas. I just really wanted to use that word. I promise I won't use it again; this ain't Dickens. Seriously, though, sophomore year totally sucked. I broke my toe and couldn't be in the school production of Grease, Doug Lapidus took a picture of a huge zit on my nose and broadcast it on Facebook, and that bitch Veronica Cohen stole my prom date Mark Leibowitz" (p. 3).

"Still, none of my experiences in high school could have prepared me for the utter lameness of the guys I'd soon meet in boarding school. I repeat, and seriously, feel free to scribble this somewhere while you're reading: None of my experiences in high school could have prepared me for the utter lameness of the guys I'd soon meet in boarding school. Pretty please, keep this in mind before you blame me for everything that happens in the next however many pages" (pp. 5-6).

"It proved fairly easy to track down Josh Beck.  Some random girl knew him and said he was usually at the school gym around five.
Okay, I'm totally gonna sound like a stalker now, but I basically camped outside the gym until I spotted Josh." (p. 41)

"Memories flooded my feeble mind--memories of 9/11.  My family and I were supposed to go into the city the night before to watch a Broadway play and stay at a hotel.  It was a tradition.  We called them "Green Apple Nights," and Daddy let us take off from school and everything.
Anyway, Daddy had a friend in the towers that we were going to visit the morning of 9/11, and the only reason it didn't happen is because Abby got food poisoning and everything was canceled.  Daddy's friend died in the attacks.  It took me years to recover from the fact that I, too, almost died that day.  And here death was again, knocking on the door but not coming inside.  It chilled me to my core.  What the F was up with September?" (p. 53)

"I wanted to get away with it.  Beneath the anger and the self-defense lay something primal, something pleasurable even.  As I'd watched Josh squirm, a feeling came over me I can only describe now as empowerment.  Watching this creep die suddenly filled me with a force I'd never known myself to possess.  It was all mine.  I was Supergirl" (p. 68)


Tasty Rating:  !!

REVIEW: Smile (This book did make me smile--and gave me flashbacks to my braces days)

Telgemeier, R.  (2010).  Smile.  New York:  Graphix.

214 pages.


Appetizer:  Set over approximately four years (between 1988 and 1991, through the middle school years and up into the beginning of Sophomore year) in San Francisco, Smile is a memoir of Raina's tween years and her painful quest to shape her teeth into a smile that wouldn't cause her embarrassment.  It begins simply enough:  Raina is to get braces.  This plan is complicated when Raina trips while chasing a friend and lands on her face, damaging her two front teeth.  Complications ensue.

Many complications.

Aside from the issues with finally getting her smile to be the way Raina wants it to be, she's also dealing with acne, having a crush, realizing what she wants to do with her life, needing her first bra, learning that some of her friends are not so much friends as they are frienemies AND getting her ears pierced.  This book kind of reminded me of a puberty book (like Sex, Puberty and All That Stuff or What's Happening to My Body), but would be much less awkward for a young girl to receive or discuss with an adult.

At one point, Raina notes the need to talk about how tweens feel awkward about their bodies:

I feel like that is exactly what Smile does:  starts a conversation to help girls to feel a little less freakish.

This memoir felt so honest and made me reflect on my own memories of being eleven-twelve-thirteen-fourteen-ish (for better or for worse).  (For better...I focused in on the day I got my braces off in eighth grade.  My teeth felt so slimy!  Then, after I went back to school, Mike P., the boy I kinda-sorta had a crush on, was the first person to notice that my braces were gone.  Very exciting.)

I really liked the way Raina's continuing battle to get her teeth problems under control provided a unifying conflict to bring the story together.  The one aspect that weakened the text for me was the narration at the very end.  The equivalent of a voice over, on p. 206 Raina makes comments like "Instead, I threw my passion into things I enjoyed, rather than feeling sorry for myself" and "I realized that I had been letting the way I looked on the outside affect how I felt on the inside."

*Barfs a little.*

I, of course, agree that these are important messages to give to tween (and even some adult!) readers, the way the narration came in to sum-up the message felt a little too overty/teachy-preachy/didacticy for my tastes.

You had me until page 206, Raina Telgemeier.  Page 206.


Dinner Conversation:

Tasty Rating:  !!!!

REVIEW: The True Meaning of Smekday (I still heart it)

The last time I read The True Meaning of Smekday, I listened to the audio book...

And it was magnificent!

This time around, I decided to read the actual text, so the graphic novel portions would be a little easier to follow and so I could write a proper review of the book.

I actually only got about 40 or 50-pages in, before I found myself desperately missing the voice of Bahni Turpin and went back to the Odyssey Award-winning audio book.

(She adds so much personality to the Boov voices!)

And look, I still managed to write a review of the story.

Rex, A.  (2007)  The True Meaning of Smekday.  New York:  Hyperion Books for Children.

423 pages.

Appetizer:  As part of a school assignment and national competition, twelve-year-old Tip (AKA Gratuity Tucci) must write about "The True Meaning of Smekday" and describe her personal experience during the recent alien invasion.

Tip had quite the experience, to say the least.

In this hilarious road-trip story, Tip recounts how her mother was abducted by aliens, how she befriended a Boov alien who goes by the name J.Lo and how together the crossed much of the country in search of Tip's mom.

Although the middle part of the story does feel to drag on a little as Tip and J.Lo go from state to state encountering various characters, I absolutely love the way this novel explores and discusses issue of race, discrimination and the forced relocation of people.  (And those are topics that normally a person would be hard-pressed to say that they "love" anything about discussing them.)

There are so many wonderful humorous moments in the story that even a year after reading this book for the first time, can still make me giggle.

My biggest regret in terms of The True Meaning of Smekday is that I did not listen to or read it soon.  *Bows to Holly who had originally recommended the book to me months and months before I ever got around to reading it.*

I've used this book in my classroom twice so far.  Once, I read aloud a portion of pages 24-29 to demonstrate the misunderstanding of when people (in this case creatures) from different cultures meet and to highlight the power dynamic between different cultures meeting (and from there show how some science fiction novels include cultural critiques and can be a vehicle to discuss race relations as well has historical periods when people from a specific culture were forced to relocate...*wipes brow*  that's a lot for one little read aloud to be able to do.)

The second time I used the book, I first did a pre-reading activity in which my writing students had to invent and describe their own "Smekday" holiday.  Many of them seemed to have a lot of fun with it.  In terms of their thoughts on the book.

I also used the book to discuss audience, since during her narration, Tip mentions several times that she's writing for people in the future.

Mmm, delicious.  So much to talk about.

I have to admit though, *after* reading the book, only a handful of my students enjoyed the book as much as I did.  Many seemed to think it was too long.

My argument that the meandering middle just provided "more for them to love" only went so far.


Dinner Conversation:

"ASSIGNMENT: Write an essay titled THE TRUE MEANING OF SMEKDAY. what is the Smekday Holiday? How has it changed in the year since the aliens left? You may use your own personal experiences from the alien invasion to make your points. Feel free to draw pictures or include photographs" (p. 1)

"It was Moving Day.

Should that be capitalized? I never would have capitalized it before, but now Moving Day is a national holiday and everything, so I think it should be.

Capitalized.

Anyway.

It was Moving Day, and everybody was crazy" (p. 3).

"I remember Apocalypse Hal was on the corner by the Laundromat.  Hal was a neighborhood street preacher who worked at the fist and crab place next door.  He wore a sandwich board sign of Bible verses and shouted angry things at passerby like "The end times are near" and "Seafood samples $5.99."  Now his sign just read "TOLD YOU SO," and he looked more anxious than angry.
"I was right," he said as I passed.
"About the fish or the apocalypse?" I asked.  He followed beside me.
"Both."  (p. 4).

"I stifled a laugh.  "J.Lo?  Your Earth name is J.Lo?"
"Ah-ah," J.Lo corrected.  "Not 'Earth.'  'Smekland'."
"What do you mean, 'Smekland'?"
"That is the thing what we have named the planet.  Smekland.  As to tribute to our glorious leader, Captain Smek."
"Wait."  I shook my head.  "Whoa.  You can't just rename the planet."
"Peoples who discover places gets to name it."
"But it's called Earth.  It's always been called EArth."
J.Lo smiled condescendingly.  I wanted to hit him.
"You humans live too much in the pasttime.  We did land onto Smekland a long time ago."
"You landed last Christmas!"
"Ah-ah.  Not 'Christmas.1  'Smekday."
"Smekday?"
"Smekday"  (p. 28).

"Okay.  Starting before the Boov came.
I guess I really need to begin almost two years ago.  This was when my mom got the mole on her neck.  This was when she was abducted.
I didn't see it happen, naturally.  That's how it is with these things.  Nobody ever gets abducted at a football game, or at church, or right after Kevin Frompky knocks all your books out of your hands between classes and everybody's looking and laughing and you have no choice but to sock him in the eye.
Or whatever" (p. 33).

"My birth certificate says "Gratuity Tucci," but Mom's called me Turtlebear ever since she learned that "Gratuity" didn't mean what she thought it did.  My friends call me Tip.
I guess I'm telling you all this as a way of explaining about my mom.  When people ask me about her, I say she's very pretty.  When they ask if she's smart like me, I say she's very pretty" (p. 37).


Tasty Rating: !!!!!

REVIEW: Mad Love (is tons of mad fun!--but maybe a little too chaotic)

Selfors, S.  (2011).  Mad Love.  New York:  Walker & Company.

323 pages.


Appetizer:  Alice has been telling a lot of lies lately.  She's had to.  The biggest lie is that her mom, a semi-famous romance author, is "overseas," researching her next book.  The reality is far less glamorous, and despite being tired of the lies, Alice does everything she can to maintain her family's secrets.  This becomes almost impossible though, when the family savings are close to gone, her mom's publisher is demanding the next book and Alice speaks on her mother's behalf at a book event and a strange young man in the audience insists Alice tell his story.

The possibly crazy/super attractive/vaguely stalkery guy always wears a black hoodie and claims to be Cupid.  Yes, The Cupid.  But he goes by Errol now.

When Alice refuses to write "Errol's" story, he begins to make her romantic life (or lack there of) complicated.  The skateboarding boy--Tony--who Alice has been admiring from afar is suddenly in her life adding just enough stress that Alice might go crazy (one of her biggest fears).

I know it may seem like it took me over a month to read this book, but don't take that as a judgment on Mad Love.  Blame moving across the country and starting a new job.

I wanted to sit around and read this book.

What a breath of fresh air!

If you may remember, few but dear readers, I complained during my Starcrossed review that I was stuck reading a string of mediocre books that were related to Dudley the Dissertation's topic, the gods and creatures of myth.  Mad Love has cut the string!  It felt sooooo good to dip into a book by someone who can string a bunch of words together in a way that is clever, amusing and tells an engaging story.

This book is well-written and funny.  I liked the exploration of Alice struggling to write a romance novel.  I actually wound up reading a portion aloud to my writing class (When Alice looks at writing guides and lists the rules for writing a romance:  pp. 82-85.)

Although, by mid-novel, I did wish things would speed up plot-wise and that there'd be a little less random craziness and some more clear direction of where the story was going (and that Alice would make more progress on her goals).  That feeling didn't leave as I continued to read.  (Random horrible storm that Alice must go out in to rescue someone at the end?  Whattheheck?!)  In the Author's Note, Suzanne Selfors noted that she had to revise this story extensively.  Frankly, I thought it could have used another revision or two.  It felt like there were a lot of wonderful pieces that just didn't quite fit together.  My  head was left feeling a little crowded by the book's end.  Crowded, but also amused.


Dinner Conversation:

"When you're sixteen, summer is supposed to spread before you like a magic carpet, waiting to carry you to new, exciting places.  Paperback novel in hand, bare feet buried in speckled sand, long kisses with a boy in a kayak--that's what it's supposed to be about.  Summer, with its coconut and pineapple flavors, with its reggae rhythms, with its endless possibilities for adventure and romance.
But if you asked me on that Monday in July, I'd tell you that there was nothing exciting about my summer forecast.  My magic carpet looked more like a plain, beige indoor-outdoor kind of thing and it was nailed solidly to the ground" (p. 3).

"It's easier to tell lies when there are no loving eyes staring back at you.
I told lots of lies.
Deception had become my life.  It wasn't a compulsion.  I didn't do it for some sort of thrill.  I lied constantly because I'd promised my mother that I'd never tell anyone the truth about our situation.  Lie upon lie upon lie, heaped into a great big pile.  Like a dung beetle, I maneuvered that pile everywhere I went.  And I was sick of it" (p. 9).

"The guy stood.  "I have a question for Alice."
I tapped my flip-flops against the floor.  Though his eyes were somewhat shaded by the rim of his hood, his gaze was intense.  "Yes?" I asked.
"I have a love story to tell," he said.  "And I need you to write it for me.  When can you get started?"
A few women chuckled, then a long span of silence followed as the guy continued to stare at me.  Was this a joke?
Tom cleared his throat.  "You mean you want Alice's mother to write it?  Alice is the Queen of Romance's daughter.  Maybe you didn't hear my introduction."
"I know who Alice is," the guy said.  "I want her to write my story."
The word "want hung in the air, adding an eerie note to the atmosphere.  I shifted in my seat.  "Well, that's very nice and everything, but it's your story so you should write it yourself."
"I'm not a writer," he said.  "But I lived the story, so I remember every single detail.  All you have to do is read through my notes, then write it" (p. 15).

"My name is Errol, but I used to be called Eros.  Most know me as Cupid."  He continued to stare out the window.  "I wasn't named after Cupid.  I am Cupid.  The original, one and only Cupid."
Music and customer chatter competed with his statement, so no one turned to gawk or snicker.  But I'd heard him.  A pained smile spread across my face as I pretended to be interested.  My suspicions were proven.  Something was wrong with him and the last thing I needed was to be on his radar.
"There's only on thing I want," he continued.  "And that is to tell my love story to the world.  Not the version you find in mythology books, but the real story.  The true story.  I'm the only person who can tell  it and I want you to write it" (p. 55).

"Why couldn't I write Untitled Work in Progress for my mother?
Being the Queen of Romance's daughter made me the Princess of Romance.  I may not have inherited her Nordic bone structure, her sexy figure, or her naturally plump lips, but surely I'd inherited something.  And maybe that something was the knack for storytelling.  I'd gotten Bs in English.  I'd been raised on the romance genre.  It was such an obvious answer.  And what else was I doing with my summer?
Nothing!
I could devote every minute of every day to the project.  It didn't have to be a Pulitzer Prize winner, just something that Heartstrings Publishers would accept.  This could work.  It would work.  It had to work."  (pp. 81-82)

"Someone was watching me.
Errol.
He stood across the street, looking right at me.  Foreboding rolled over me, dark and sinister.  If ever there was a time to run, it was then.  But I didn't run.  I couldn't.  Like in a nightmare I stood rooted to the spot.
"Alice?" Tony touched my arm.
Errol's hood concealed most of his face, but his mouth was tight with determination.  He held his left arm  straight out.  Then he pulled his right hand to his chest.  Something was going to happen.  Something bad.  I felt as helpless as a small creature caught in headlights.
And then, BAM!
Something collided with my chest.  A jolt shot through my body, electrifying the tips of my fingers and toes" (pp. 87-88).

"In an odd way I suddenly felt better, because of the two of us standing in that bedroom, Errol was clearly the crazier.  He thought he was the Roman god Cupid.  Sure, I might have heard a voice in my head; sure, I might have gone a bit wacko for a few hours, but I had no delusions about my identity.  I wasn't Isis, or Supergirl, or Bella Swan.  I was Alice Amorous, daughter of a semifamous, mentally ill romance writer, who would soon be getting food stamps if her mother didn't turn in another book.  Which I was supposed to be writing." (p. 137)


Tasty Rating:  !!!!

REVIEW: Wonderstruck (I wasn't struck)

Selznick, B.  (2011).  Wonderstruck.  New York:  Scholastic Press.

629 pages.

Appetizer:  Set in Gunflint Lake, Minnesoa in 1977, Ben is missing his mother who recently died in a car accident.  During a stormy night he walks to his old home from his aunt's house.  Among his mother's stuff, he finds her rainy day fund and a book called Wonderstruck with a hand-written note that mentions a man named Danny and a bookstore bookmark of a store in New York City.  With these few clues, Ben hopes that he may finally find and know his father.  Just as he picks up the phone and try to call the number for the bookstore, lightning strikes the house and Ben's life is once again changed.

This picturebook/novel is also the story of a lonely girl named Rose in Hoboken, New Jersey in 1927.  She admires an actress in a silent film named Lillian Mayhew.  After learning that Lillian will be in a play in New York City, Rose decides to run away to see her.

Both of their quests will take Rose and Ben to New York City and to the American Museum of Natural History.

Ben's story is told almost entirely in text and Rose's story is told almost entirely in illustrations.  Despite the differences in settings, there are moments when the tales connect and (eventually) unite.

When I began reading, I was frustrated because of the seemingly wide gaps between the two stories.  Initially only images like stars and lightning connect the two.  My brain was desperate for the two stories to unite.  Part of what made me fall totally and completely in love with Selznick's previous giant-picturebook/novel, The Invention of Hugo Cabret, was the way the setting, medium and content all worked together to add meaning to the story.  By the third or fourth time that I read The Invention of Hugo Cabret, I was still finding new meanings and connections among the different aspects of the story.

I can't say the same will happen with Wonderstruck.


Don't get me wrong, this novel is still impressive.  It has a E.L. Konigsburg, From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler feel to it.  It just didn't *capture* me the way Selznick's Hugo Cabret did.

As a book, it does demonstrate a love of astronomy, dioramas, wolves, and museums, expresses a sense of loneliness and searching that I found very relatable and shows examples of the experience of being deaf in different times.

But still, Wonderstruck didn't capture my imagination or impress me the way The Invention of Hugo Cabret did.  (Not that books should always be compared.  But since these two stand alone in terms of their form, it's hard not to make comparisons.)

I'd be curious to know what some of you thought of the book, Few But Dear Readers.  Am I alone in my stance?

For the time being, here's one of the early moments when the stories overlap for you to enjoy.  Mary is watching a movie of a storm and Ben is in his mother's house, looking through her stuff as a storm approaches.  Enjoy.

(pp. 120-126)


Dinner Conversation:

"Something hit Ben Wilson and he hopened his eyes.  The wolves had been chasing him again and his heart was pounding.  He sat up in the dark room and rubbed his arm.  He picked up the shoe his cousin had thrown at him and dropped it on the floor.
"That hurt, Robby!" (p. 16).

"Ever since the accident, the wolves had appeared, galloping across the moonlit snow, red tongues wagging and white teeth glistening.  He couldn't figure out why they were stalking him, because he used to love wolves.  He and his mom had even seen one once from the front porch of their house.  The wolf had looked beautiful and mysterious, like it had stepped out of a storybook" (p. 17).

"He had believed his mother when she told him he'd never be lost as long as he could find the North Star.  But now that she was gone, he realized it wasn't true.
The mysterious quote from his mom's bulletin board echoed again in his mind.
We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars" (p. 27).

"Was it days later or only a few minutes when his aunt Jenny appeared?  Her eyes were red and watery. She sat on the bed and stroked his hair.  He thought he could smell the food she'd been cooking at the lodge as she ran her fingers down his cheek just like his mom used to.  He watched her lips move.  He looked at the nurses talking to each other.  His head felt like it was full of leaves.  He opened his mouth to say he couldn't hear but nothing came out.
The nurse handed Aunt Jenny a piece of paper and a pen.  She wrote a note and handed it to Ben.
"I know you can't hear.  Don't try to talk.  Just lie still."
Ben's head throbbed.  How did she know what he'd been thinking?
"You've had an accident.  You're going to be okay, but you were hit by lightning." (p. 175)


Tasty Rating:  !!!

REVIEW: The Facts Speak For Themselves (but don't use quotation marks)

Cole, B. (1997). the facts speak for themselves. New York: Puffin Books.

184 pages.

Appetizer: Thirteen-year-old Linda was escorted into the police interrogation room with blood still under her nails. After being interrogated about the deaths of two men (a murder-suicide situation between the boyfriend and boss of her mother that Linda is somehow at the center of), Linda is separated from her little brothers and mother, who need her to watch over them, to stay at a center run by nuns.

She has meetings with a social worker to discuss her childhood of abuse, discrimination, abandonment and responsibility over her brothers.

Linda's story is touching, heartbreaking and the amount of responsibility she took on at such a young age is shocking.

This can be a wonderful book to give voice to the secret pains and dark scars that many children and adults have.

Although, as I was reading, I did wish that quotation marks were used to better mark dialogue.

This book may be dark, but it is also real...and difficult to put down after you start reading. (I know that if it were a movie, I'd hate it. It's kind of like Requiem for a Dream. You just know things are going to get worse and worse.)


Dinner Conversation:

"The woman policeman says why don't you come in here, and so I went. It was a little room with a table and some chairs. That was all. Instead of a window, there was a big mirror. I wouldn't look at that. I didn't want to see myself. I sad down and folded my hands. There was still blood under my nails, so after a minute I put them under the table" (p. 9).

"Listen, young lady, Sister says. You're not in charge anymore. This is a difficult situation, and it's going to take a little time to straighten out. Two men are dead, she says and bites her lip.
What two men?
Mr. Green and Mr. Perry.
That was how I found out. Jack had died in the ambulance and Frank had walked down into the basement of the parking ram and shot himself" (p. 20).

"I gave her the facts, and she wrote them up in a preliminary report. I know, because I got it out of her bag when she came back one afternoon to warn me about what was going to happen.
There's going to be a hearing, she says, and I want you to be as straight with the judge as you are with me" (p. 23).

"I want to write my own preliminary report, I said.
She looked at me a long time.
I think that's a very good idea, she says finally.
Will they read it?
Yes, she says. I'll make sure they do" (p. 25).

"Looked at in a certain way, the whole history of the world seemed arranged so we could meet that first time.
He said we were doomed by circumstance. Our fate was in the facts" (p. 141).


Tasty Rating: !!!

Louisiana Series: An audio Book review of My Louisiana Sky (AKA the day I began to worry about Coral Snakes)

As a way to get to know my new state of residence, I've been trying to read literature about Louisiana. 

(The selection has proven to be a little...pathetic.  There's not much of a selection.  Especially since I'd like to read about more than just New Orleans.)

First off, let me tell you that my general knowledge of Louisiana was very limited before moving here:  Hurricane Katrina, other hurricanes, cajuns, Remy from the X-men, alligators, oil spill, Mardi Gras, True Blood/The Southern Vampire series (which, admittedly I've seen every episode of/read every book).

It's a pretty limited view of an entire state.

I actually had to bite my tongue during my initial Skype job interview to stop myself from asking if alligators and hurricanes were something I should worry about in the area I would be moving (Answers:  Not too concerned unless a hurricane displaces the alligators and Yes, be concerned:  power outages possibly lasting weeks, high winds and rain during the storms.)

So, I was left feeling like I wanted to see some of the other ways that my new state is presented.  I--of course--turned to children's literature.

I decided to begin my acquaintance (and this new series of reviews) with Louisiana in children's literature by listening to the audiobook of Kimberly Willis Holt's My Louisiana Sky.  She's the author of When Zachary Beaver Came to Town, which I read five or six years ago and remember enjoying.

The premise is that Tiger Anne--a girl living in Saitter, Louisiana--faces a choice.  She and her grandmother have always had to look after Tiger's mother and father who are both "retarded" (to use the dated language in this historical novel).  When tragedy strikes, Tiger must face the choice of moving to Baton Rouge to live with her stylish aunt and staying home to care for her parents.

An angsty premise that is one-part coming of age story and two-parts character figuring out her own identity through a major decision story.  I could get into it.

I especially liked that Tiger was a tomboy who played baseball better than most of the boys.

I downloaded and started listening...and absolutely *hated* the tones the narrator used to voice the various characters.  Sometimes her Southern accent didn't match the Louisiana accent I've been enjoying for the past few weeks.  Often when she gave voice to minor characters, she spoke in tones that made them sound completely and unnecessarily idiotic. 


I was not a big fan.  I probably would have enjoyed the story more if I read it.

I did eventually ease into the story.  Especially when a character died of a heart attack after seeing a coral snake.  (So...coral snakes...is this something I have to worry about now?)

Louisiana, please advise.

Then towards the end of the book, there was a hurricane.

Sigh.

At least there weren't any alligators.

How much I learned about Louisiana:  Not too much.
How much I felt comforted about some of the supposedly-scary aspects of the state usually presented by the media:  Also not too much.

I have since discovered there was a children's movie made of the My Louisiana Sky, starring Juliette Lewis and a younger Michael Cera, among others.

...

Netflix guesstimates I'd give the movie two stars.

...

I did add the movie to my queue.  It will stay at the bottom and I'll get to it when I get to it.

REVIEW: Darth Paper Strikes Back (YAY!!!!!)

Once again, I must apologize for the lack of posts.  It would seem that as stressful as preparing to move halfway across the country was, actually moving and starting the new job is even *more* stressful.

Lucky for me, there was a happy book delivery to my new home....

I have been waiting for this book to come out for YEARS several months.  I absolutely loved The Strange Case of Origami Yoda and taught it to my undergraduate children's literature classes.  It was one of the few books that the vast majority of my students seemed to enjoy.  (There were, of course, always a few Star Wars-haters or disinterested-ers who couldn't get into it.  There were also people embarrassed to be seen carrying around a book with such a nerdy cover.

Then there's me.  I want a poster of this cover to put up in my office.*  Whatever.)

But more than the fun Star Wars references, Angleberger seems to *get* it.  He seems to truly remember what it is to be a kid; the concerns and the humor.

So, I was very happy about the sequel:  Darth Paper Strikes Back....


[Cue Star Wars music!!!!!!!!!]

Appetizer:  "It is a dark time at McQuarrie Middle School."  Harvey has been causing trouble by making an origami Darth Vader and it's only the first day of seventh grade.  Worst of all, Dwight has been suspended and may have to go to a correctional and remedial education facility.  Before Dwight left the school with his Yoda finger puppet, Yoda managed to give one last bit of wisdom:  To ask Tommy, Kellen and some of the other kids at McQuarrie to build a case file to prove that Dwight isn't a danger to anyone.

What follows are the accounts of many of the seventh graders, speaking about the good deeds Dwight (and Yoda) did over the summer at the skate park and during the fall in science class and at other events.

The fact that Angleberger includes a "multicultural inclusion gone wrong" episode was of particular interest to me.  Caroline, who was a love interest to Dwight in the previous book, but who has now started going to a private school, is having trouble with an "understanding our differences" policy at her school since she is the one who is different.  Caroline has a severe hearing impairment.  She usually reads lips, but since her new classmates try to converse with her by yelling or using sign language (which Caroline does not use) she is having trouble understanding them.

Yoda's advice to Caroline *does* involve telling a lie (which I won't reveal the specifics of).  I wasn't too crazy about the lie.  But the fact that the situation was included and that Yoda/Dwight still provided a fun solution that made me think Angelberger or Yoda needs to start an advice column for middle schoolers.  He does an amazing job of encouraging empathy across different backgrounds and experiences.

As I continued to read Darth Paper Strikes Back, a few concerns did come to mind.  In this book, Harvey is presented as being a villain.  Although I will admit he was my least favorite character during the first book, he still represents a very real characterization.  So, I wanted to see a bit more understanding of his perspective sooner.  Also, this book includes pseudo-swear words (You know, %$#@, etc.).  The reason I mention this is because I know for a fact that second graders read this series.  I could see parents of children that young being upset by such typing.  (There was also use of the word "crap" on page 71, which, when I was little I used to get into debates with other kids over whether that was a swear word or not.  The character who uses the word does get in trouble for his bad attitude after using the word.  But still... *shrugs*  Parents of second-graders be warned.)

This is a series that grows with the students though.  The first book included a lot of different voices in episodic short chapters and had drawings in the margins throughout the entire story.  Darth Paper Strikes Back includes longer chapters, fewer voices, conflicts that build across chapters and, due to some of the plotting, the margin illustrations are not used in the final third of the story.  The book is slowly helping younger readers to transition to novel reading.  Good show.  Good show, I say.

Angleberger also begins to build an argument about the way creative and unusual kids are treated under the "Teach to the Test" mentality that schools have.  Here's an excerpt from Tommy's point-of-view that demonstrates this:

I was almost to my locker when I saw Principal Rabbski up ahead.  She likes to stand in the middle of the hallway so that all the kids have to detour around her. 

I put my hand up and pointed Origami Yoda right at her. 

"If you strike down Dwight, he will grow more powerful than you can possibly imagine!" said Origami Yoda. 

Rabbski sighed. 

"Tommy, I think it's time you and I had a little talk." 

..."Listen, Tommy," she started.  I've heard about your petition or whatever it is that you're going to give the school board tonight.  I can't talk to you about another student's disciplinary problems, but there are a few things you need to understand." 

She had a lot to say.  A lot of it was about the Standards of Learning tests that we have to take and how important they are to the students and to the school.  She said some students were a constant distraction from the Standards of Learning.  Not only were they hurting themselves, they were also hurting other students and the whole school, since school funding was based on test scores. 

"When I see you in the office for screaming at another student one day, and the next day you're walking down the hall with a Yoda puppet, being disrespectful to me, that just proves my point," she said.  "You're a good kid, but another kid has got you confused and distracted.  I need you to put Yoda away.  Put your petition away.  And concentrate on the real reason you're here:  To learn.  To ace the Standards test." 

Well, I was confused and distracted, but there was no way I was buying all that.  It had an Emperor Palpatine sound to it.  (pp. 129-131)

Well put, Tommy.

*Sets timer and begins waiting for the third book.  Also starts taking bets on whether there will be three or six books in this series.*


Dinner Conversation:

"It is a dark time at McQuarrie Middle School...
When did it start?  I can tell you exactly when it started.
The first day of school.  The very first day of seventh grade.  We didn't even get one good day.  We got, like, five minutes" (p. 1).

"Paperwad Yoda?  Sorry, this isn't the year of Paperwad Yoda."
And then he goes, "Bom bom bom bom-ba-bomb bom-ba-bomb."  Vader's theme.
And he sticks out his hand and there it is:  an origami Darth Vader, made out of black paper, with shiny silver eyes and a red paper lightsaber.
There are a lot of things that might have happened next.  I was about to say, "That's awesome," because I did think it was awesome.
But before any of us guys could say anything like that, Rhondella says, "Aww, it's so cute!"
And Sara says, "Yeah, it really is cute, Harvey."
And Amy says, "He's so teeeny!"
Harvey was furious, of course."  (pp. 2-3)

"This case file is to try and save Dwight and Origami Yoda from the school board.  His is it going to save them?  I have no idea.  But Origami Yoda said to do it, so we're doing it.
That was the last piece of advice Origami Yoda was able to give us.  Since then we've been on our own.  Actually, it's worse than that...
Instead of Dwight and Origami Yoda, we're stuck with Harvey and Darth Paper!" (pp. 8-9)

"Dwight looked like a zombie.  He was too freaked out to say anything.
But he held up Yoda, and Yoda said, "Out of school kicked we have been."
"Kicked out?  For what?  For having Yoda?  No way!" said Kellen.
"Way yes," croaked Yoda.  "Save Dwight you must."
"How?"
"The truth for the school board you must write.  Another case file is needed."
I was going to ask him something useful about the case file--like, why we needed to write it or what it should be about--when Kellen butted in.
"Should I doodle on it again?" asked Kellen annoyingly.
"Hurt that could not, I guess," answered Yoda.
The Dwight's mother and Principal Rabbski came out of the office, and I didn't have a chance to ask my useful question" (pp. 16-17).

"Dear School Board,
Having had some time to reflect on the incident with the pre-eaten wiener, I have come to the conclusion that Dwight/Yoda are the good guys while the rest of the kids around here are a pack of wild savages who would think it was really funny if I ended up puking from food poisoning or getting a tapeworm or worse!" (p. 92)


Tasty Rating:  !!!!


*Can somebody make this happen?  I've done multiple searches and an Origami Yoda one doesn't seem to exist.  Who wants to be a hero and find/make me a poster?!

REVIEW: Divergent (If The Giver Bought the Hogwarts Houses a Drink, Nine Months Later This Is the Book a Stork Would Deliver to YA Readers' Doorsteps)

Roth, V.  (2011).  Divergent.  New York:  Katherine Tegen Books.

487 pages.


Appetizer:  In the future and in the remains of Chicago, people choose factions to devote their life to:  Candor for those who privilege honesty, Abnegation for those who value selflessness, Dauntless for the brave, Erudite for those who devote themselves to intelligence and Amity for those who focus on peace.  There are also an unlucky few who are faction-less, who live in poverty.

At the age of sixteen, people are tested and then choose their faction during a ceremony.  Raised by abnegation-ist parents, Beatrice--or Tris--faces a tough choice.  She has never felt like she truly belonged with her selfless parents.  The results of her test complicate matters further.  Beatrice learns she is divergent--she could potentially belong to three of the factions--a fact she is told to keep secret as she faces the choice between betraying her parents' hopes for her and pursuing her own dreams.

Divergent is an interesting concept.  It's a blending of the sorting into Hogwarts houses with the Hunger Games and The Giver.  The execution of this story, however falls short of the blogger and insta-movie deal hype that I heard about this book.  It also falls short of the stories I'm comparing it to.  Although Tris's struggle to make her own choice for herself is engaging--and is a central struggle for any young person who is contemplating making choices that his or her family disagrees with--it falls short when compared to Katniss sacrificing herself for her sister in The Hunger Games.

The deadly challenges Tris faced while being initiated into the Dauntless faction were hard to believe as permissible in the society.  While logically, I knew that Roth was constructing a world different from my own and was critiquing the hostile and horrible environments that the Dauntless characters live in, I just couldn't quite believe the world she was creating.  Wouldn't a brave person speak out against the injustice and suffering they see around them?  I found myself mumbling "lawsuit" repeatedly as the Dauntless initiates were required to jump onto or off a moving train or leap off the side of a building with no support, safety nets, training or proper instruction.  I repeat, lawsuit.

Maybe I'm just not "dauntless" enough to believe in this world or maybe I've been too sheltered all my life/too lucky to ever experience a group dynamic with such a competitive and dangerous mentality.

*Shrugs*

As a reader, I also needed to feel a clearer threat to the society or to Tris.  The Dauntless train hard to protect what remains of human society...from what?  While there are hints that Denmark Broken-Chicago is a kind of stinky place within the first 300ish pages, I needed a real threat sooner.  I also needed to understand why being divergent was dangerous sooner.  Basically, this book could have--and should have--been 150 pages shorter.

But having said that, there were some moments in this book that really captured my attention and engaged me.  Whenever Tris faced injustice at the hands of her fellow initiates or at the hands of the Dauntless leaders, I wanted her to come back and kick a-- *ahem* ...and kick bum-bum.  (And she was a tough character who wanted to do just that.)  I also found some of the subtle tensions and themes very engaging; such as the propaganda the erudite faction was creating against the abnegationists or the way Tris had to accept the idea that some of her friends were also her competition.

Overall, this is another one of those books that doesn't seem to meet the hype, but is still enjoyable.  Recommend it!  Just don't imply that it's the best thing in THE HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSE/SINCE SLICED BREAD/IN THE WORLD OF YA LITERATURE as you do.


Dinner Conversation:

"There is one mirror in my house.  It is behind a sliding panel in the hallway upstairs.  Our faction allows me to stand in front of it on the second day of every third month, the day my mother cuts my hair" (p. 1).

"Today is the day of the aptitude test that will show me which of the five factions I belong in.  And tomorrow, at the Choosing Ceremony, I will decide on a faction; I will decide the rest of my life' I will decide to stay with my family or abandon them" (p. 2).

"People who get this kind of result are..."  She looks over her shoulder like the expects someone to appear behind her.  "...are called...Divergent."  She says the last word so quietly that I almost don't hear it, and her tense, worried look returns.  She walks around the side of the chair and leans in close to me.
"Beatrice," she says, "under no circumstances should you share that information with anyone.  This is very important" (p. 22).

"I realize that the decision might be simple.  It will require a great act of selflessness to choose Abnegation, or a great act of courage to choose Dauntless, and maybe just choosing one over the other will prove that I belong.  Tomorrow, those two qualities will struggle within me, and only one can win" (p. 37).


Tasty Rating:  !!!

REVIEW: Starcrossed

Angelini, J.  (2011).  Starcrossed.  New York:  HarperTeen.

487 pages.  (Those be a lot of pages!  And I read every single one...like a big girl.)


BEAUTIFUL COVER:  Check.

INTERESTING PREMISE:  Helen is attracted to/repelled by a new boy on the island and learns that they are members of waring factions descended from the Greek gods.  Check.

A GOOD ENGAGING STORY:  ....

A GOOD ENGAGING STORY?

...

...

Meh.



Appetizer:  Sixteen-year-old Helen just wants to be normal.  But as a six-foot tall, beautiful, blond that all the Nantucket tourists stare at, it would seem she's doomed to stand out.  (Poor baby.  Don't you just tear-up at the thought of her burden?  It does turn out that Helen is hiding some big secrets though--including super strength and speed--but by the time I realized that she had real secrets, I was already annoyed by Helen's self consciousness.)


When the Delos family moves to town, Helen has a strange reaction to the mere sight of one of the boys in that family, Lucas:  She wants to kill him.  (WTF?  Anger, violence, hate and attempted murder are the new sexy?!  No thank you.)  She also starts to have dreams of a dry land that also hosts the three Greek fates.  To make matters worse the Delos family now know her secrets, but can she trust these potential enemies to keep them?  And what are they and Lucas hiding?  And who else might be searching for Helen?


Let's admit this straight away--I did not enjoy this book.  Normally, I probably wouldn't have finished or written a review on it.  But since Starcrossed was related to my dissertation research, I forced my way through it.

Okay, that disclaimer out of the way, on to the rest of the review...

Nothing about Helen or Lucas really grabbed me.  I found the starting point of I-Hate-and-Want-to-Kill-You to be an upsetting starting point for a romance and the continuing violence against women (with few consequences) was disturbing.

For example, one of the Delos family members, Cassandra, attacks Helen with a sword to test a theory:

"Cassandra swung the sword.  In that millisecond Helen knew she'd had a good life, because she suddenly loved it so much that she could have wept with gratitude.  She'd had amazing friends, the best dad in the world, and a strong, healthy body.  She'd even experienced the joy of flight.  And once, just once, in the middle of the night, she'd almost kissed the only boy she'd ever wanted.... (p. 254-255)

Nice defeatist attitude, Helen.  If your life is so great, why don't you try to keep it as a supposed-friend swings a sword at your neck?  You don't have to fight back, but a nice duck or sidestep would be appropriate.  Let's continue with the scene...

Helen felt a strange, vibrating tickle, like someone had pressed a gigantic kazoo against the side of her throat and blown on it.  She saw Cassandra's eyes widen as she pulled the blade back from the side of Helen's neck and looked at it."   

..."'I was right.'  She dropped the sword and grabbed Helen in a hug.  Then she started jumping up and down, making Helen jump with her.  "You're not dead!  This is...You have no idea how happy I am I didn't just kill you!" she squealed."  (p. 254-255)

What the heck?  Seriously?

Look, I am open to a book exploring violence, victimization and empowerment...but I found Starcrossed's presentation to be thoughtless with almost no consequences of actions and choices included.

Both good characters and bad characters hurt characters who pose no threat to them.  Multiple times throughout the story, Helen is abused by Hector Delos, a supposed friend, under the premise that he is training her.

Helen is also threatened many times and in many ways, but never fights back.  (This, in theory, could be a great message about remaining in control, not rising to the bate or advocating peace, but since Helen learns she's invulnerable to weapons, and so just let's herself get hit, it's not exactly a model impressionable young readers should follow.)

Plus, the way the Delos family is constructed reminded me a little too much of the Cullen family in Twilight.  Then there was the way that the entire family--whether they liked Helen or not--devoted their lives to protect her.  Like in TWILIGHT!  The fact Helen lived alone with her dad.  Also Twilight-ish.  The fact that she starts a relationship with a boy who wishes to protect her but resists her and all of his urges to be with her sexually--STINKS OF TWILIGHT!

Now would be a good time to accuse me of having Twilight on the brain...but honestly, I don't.  I haven't reread the books in year or so.

Also, I was not crazy about the way the book played with point-of-view.  The vast majority of the story is told from Helen's perspective.  That's fine.  Then suddenly, there are small segments from one of the villain's perspectives.  Okay, I guess.  The suddenly we see Lucas's perspective.  Ummm, why?  And within the last 100 pages, while being under the guise of third-person limited with Helen's perspective, the narration still briefly dips into other characters' thoughts.  Sloppy.  I just wanted the narration to be consistent.

Sigh.  I feel like I've had a string of mostly negative reviews over the last couple of months when it comes to these vaguely dissertation related myth books.  While I of course enjoy growing more and more snarky, I am starting to feel bad for the string of authors whose books I've been critical of.  Let us all keep our fingers crossed that the next book in my ol' dissertation mountain will entertain me more.


Dinner Conversation:

"Some of the Labor Day tourists were staring at her, not unusual, so Helen tried to turn her face away as subtly as she could.  When Helen looked in a mirror all she saw were the basics--two eyes, a nose, and a mouth--but strangers from off island tended to stare, which was really annoying" (p. 2).

"'But I really thought you'd be more interested in the Delos family.  You'll be graduating with a few of them.'
Helen stood there as Delos ran around her head.  The name meant nothing to her.  How could it?  But some echoey part of her brain kept repeating "Delos" over and over" (pp. 11-12).

"Secretly, Helen had always felt she was different, but she thought she had done a pretty good job of hiding it her whole life.  Apparently, without realizing it, she'd been sending out hints of that buried freak inside of her.  She had to try to keep her head down, but she wondered how she was going to do that when she kept getting taller and taller every damn day" (p. 23).

"Lucas was standing in front of his locker about twenty feet away, staring back at Helen while the world waited for gravity to switch back on.  He was tall, over six feet at least, and powerfully built, although his muscles were long and lean instead of bulky.  He had short, black hair and a dark end-of-summer tan that brought out his white smile and his swimming-pool blue eyes.
Meeting his eyes was an awakening.  For the first time in Helen's life she knew what pure, heart poisoning hatred was" (pp. 43-44).

"No one of regular human strength could have stopped Helen from strangling him if she set her mind to it.  Lucas was like her.
The thought made her stomach heave.  How could she be anything like someone she hated so desperately" (p. 70).

"Helen suddenly realize dhow many random events and raw impulses had driven her decisions these last few days.  When she thought about it, it was as if she had stopped choosing for herself days ago.
"The Furies won't allow us to avoid each other," he said in a dead voice" (p. 81).


Tasty Rating:  !!