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I really think Sarah Dessen and I could be best friends. If you're reading this Sarah...send me an email...it's just meant to be! :) Such a brilliant author that can truly channel the teen mind and the need for "real" fiction, the latest piece of work from Dessen has probably become my favorite. I've said that as I've read each one, but really, Along for the Ride is just wonderful!

Auden is an incredibly smart girl, a girl with a great head on her shoulders, but also a girl forced to grow up quickly to impress her academic parents, even after they divorced. Always studying, always doing the right thing, Auden never had much of a childhood, not even having learned how to ride a bicycle, and so far, her teen years haven't been much better. Well this summer, Auden is just sick to death of putting up with her overbearing, uncaring mother and all the graduate students that flit in and out of the woman's life, so she decides to go spend the summer at her father's beach house, with his new wife, and her new baby sister, Thisbe.

Taking a job in her stepmother's fancy beach boutique is about the last thing Auden planned to do, as were falling in love with both a guy and her baby sister, or forgetting to study all summer long. But work, fall in love, and become a "real girl" she does, and the experience is both satisfying and terrifying. Her simple, lonely life has become one filled to the brim with people and emotions and Auden isn't quite sure how to live anymore.

In true Sarah Dessen fashion, the reader gets the overall, perfect YA book experience. The characters feel like they could be kids you go to school with (and they all have fabulous names), the situations are ones that teens today really find themselves in, and the connections Dessen makes between plot, character, and reader is truly remarkable. One of the best I've read this year, by far.

Recommended for all libraries, as gifts, home shelves, wherever. Just go buy it.

I read this for the Spring Reading Thing Challenge and the Young Adult Challenge.

To learn more or to purchase, click on the book cover above to link to Amazon.


Along for the Ride
Sarah Dessen
400 pages
Young Adult
Viking Press
9780670011940
June 2009

Beauty and tragedy go hand-in-hand in this tear-inducing young adult novel. Gayle Forman somehow manages to craft a remarkable story of hope, healing, and love, out of a horrific situation, and left me wanting more and more as the pages turned. I was sad when the story ended, but left with a smile on my face.

Mia is a seventeen-year-old in love with music, her family, and a boy named Adam. She is a genius at the cello, playing music with a talent far beyond her years, and if she can get into Juilliard, she is most certainly moving across the country. How could she not?

Her family, made up of her wonderful parents and younger brother, is incredibly close. Closer than most families Mia knows of, all of them getting along in a wonderfully quirky way, each having their own talents and being totally supportive of the rest.

Then they all die. Each one except Mia. And Mia is left in a completely broken state, unable to move, unable to talk. All she can do is watch herself as she is being worked on in an emergency room, in an operating room, and finally in an Intensive Care Unit.

Her Adam makes it to her, but does that matter anymore? Will anything ever matter anymore? Mia ponders these questions as she lays in a coma and the reader will feel all of her pain and emotion through the text...a difficult and rare accomplishment for authors.

I was addicted from the first page, cried several times throughout the book, and was left contemplating lots of life issues once I completed the final page. The cover is beautiful, the story moving and heartaching. Teens will love it, you will love it.

A nice choice for libraries.

I read this for the Young Adult Challenge.

To learn more or to purchase, click on the book cover above to link to Amazon.

If I Stay
Gayle Forman
208 pages
Young Adult
Dutton
9780525421030
April 2009

Laurie Halse Anderson just has this knack at writing books for young adults. She's simply fantastic at it! From Speak to Twisted and everything in between, I've loved her writing and her latest, Wintergirls, is no exception.

In it we meet Lia, a teen struggling with the terrible ferocity of an eating disorder, as well as with the death of a close friend. As Lia attempts to sneak past the rules and confines of her parents, losing weight while it appears she is actually gaining, she feels stronger and stronger every day, finally close to reaching her goal of nothingness.

The ghost of Lia's dead friend Cassie is haunting her, encouraging her to continue to starve, to exercise, to be like her...dead. She can't get well, even if she wanted to, as Cassie won't let her. Fighting her friends, her parents, and Cassie's ghost, Lia continues to lose weight, to get sicker and sicker, yet prouder and prouder of herself, until she hits a breaking point that will decide her fate to live or to die.

I honestly think I wrote down about 15 quotes from Wintergirls, as Laurie Halse Anderson just has a way of getting the words perfect for the situation. My favorite passage is this:

"The snow drifts into our zombie mouths crawling with grease and curses and tobacco flakes and cavities and boyfriend/girlfriend juice, the stain of lies. For one moment we are not failed tests and broken condoms and cheating on essays; we are crayons and lunch boxes and swinging so high our sneakers punch holes in the clouds. For one breath everything feels better. Then it melts. The bus drivers rev their engines and the ice cloud shatters. Everyone shuffles forward. They don't know what just happened. They can't remember." (14-15).

Raw emotion doesn't begin to describe the manner in which the author tackles the issue of anorexia. Yes... this is definitely an "issue" book, but it's real. No neat, clean edges. No tying things up in a pretty bow and solving all the character's problems. Lia is broken and may never be fixed...

Loved this!

To learn more or to purchase, click on the book cover above to link to Amazon. I read this for the Young Adult Challenge.

Wintergirls
Laurie Halse Anderson
288 pages
Young adult
Viking
9780670011100
March 2009

It's hard to believe that 2008 is halfway over, and I have some more reading to do in order to successfully complete Joy's Young Adult Challenge, which is to read 12 Young Adult books in 2008.

Here's my tally for May and June:

Confessions of a Serial Kisser by Wendelin van Draanen(my review)
Madapple by Christina Meldrum (my review)
The Eyes of a King by Catherine Banner (my review)
The Ghosts of Kerfol by Deborah Noyes (my review)
The Adoration of Jenna Fox by Mary E. Pearson (my review)

I'm adding that to Sweethearts by Sara Zarr and Prey by Lurlene McDaniel to bring my total to seven. Five more to go!

Jones, Carrie. 2008. Love (and other uses for duct tape.)

Love (and Other Uses for Duct Tape) is the sequel to last year's Tips On Having A Gay (Ex) Boyfriend.

You think you know people and then it turns out you don't.
You think you learn this and then it turns out you didn't.
People keep changing who they are and defining themselves by their own choices, and that's cool most of the time, but not all the time. No, it's not cool all the time.

My favorite list-making heroine is back. Belle. When the novel opens, Belle is facing The Problem. What is her problem this time, you wonder, well, in a way it's both simple and complex. The problem of the moment is that Belle wants to be having sex with Tom. But Tom is happy taking things nice and slow. She's weirded out by the fact that her boyfriend isn't wanting to "do it" and also slightly perplexed as to why he hasn't used the L-word yet. Why hasn't Tom--this wonderfully nice guy--told her he loves her? His actions all show that he does. But he hasn't said it. This problem is viewed alongside the fact that her best friend, Em, and her boyfriend, Shawn are going strong. Not to mention the fact that even her mother has a steady boyfriend. It seems like everyone is having sex but her. That's the simple side of things.

Belle, lovable heroine that she is, is still having some problems that even she's not fully aware of. Things that make her who she is in part. But things that tend to annoy her friends and family.

If you're expecting Love (and Other Uses for Duct Tape) to be strictly romance, then you might be disappointed. This novel isn't all about the love and lust of Belle and Tom. It is a novel beyond labels and easy definitions. It's a novel about life, about love, about friendships, about knowing and loving yourself, about accepting others. It's about friends. It's about family. And it's about love. The love between friends especially.

This novel explores relationships of all sorts and varieties.

Little Willow's review.

Dessen, Sarah. 2008. Lock and Key.

"And finally," Jamie said as he pushed the door open, "we come to the main event. Your room."

That first sentence springs you right into the action, the drama that is unfolding as Ruby comes into her new home. Ruby's first thoughts, I was braced for pink. Ruffles or quilting or maybe even applique. Which was probably kind of unfair, but then again, I didn't know my sister anymore, much less her decorating style. With total strangers it had always been my policy to expect the worst. Usually they--and those that you knew best, for that matter--did not disappoint.

Ruby hasn't seen her sister in ten years. Since the day her sister went away to college. Yet now, in Ruby's seventeenth year, the two are reunited. On Ruby's part it isn't voluntary. Ruby's mother has left her. Perhaps gone off drinking. Perhaps gone off with one of her boyfriends. Perhaps gone off drinking with one of her boyfriends. Ruby doesn't know. She doesn't want to know. She just knows that her mother disappeared without a word, without a note. And as far as Ruby was concerned, that's okay. She could manage on her own well enough.

But when the authorities find out that she is all on her own, they feel the need to place her in a home. Luckily her sister, Cora, and her wealthy husband, Jamie, are more than willing to take her into their own home and provide for her in a way that no adult ever has.

Ruby doesn't trust this new family. She doesn't trust anyone. She doesn't even know how to trust. It's a foreign concept to her. But over time and with much patience, Ruby may just start to realize what a family is and what a family does. It's a good thing too. Since that is one of her school assignments. Define the word "family." What she learns is well worth reading about.

I love Sarah Dessen. I do. She has an incredible gift with characters. They're always real. Always developed. Always human. Always flawed. And the style, the language, are equally wonderful. (She has such a gift with words. Her books are just quotable.) While Lock and Key lacks some of the emphasis on romance that her other novels have, there is plenty there to satisfy readers. I wouldn't say it's my favorite Dessen novel--it would be hard to knock The Truth About Forever from that place--I will say it was definitely enjoyable and definitely worth while.

It's never something huge that changes everything, but instead the tiniest of details, irrevocably tweaking the balance of the universe while you're busy focusing on the big picture. (38)

Everyone has their weak spot. The one thing that, despite your best efforts, will always bring you to your knees, regardless of how strong you are otherwise. For some people, it's love. Others, money or alcohol. Mine was even worse: calculus. (261)

Through my tears, I could hear her, saying it was all going to be okay, and I knew she believed this. But I was sure of something, too: it's a lot easier to be lost than found. It's the reason we're always searching, and rarely discovered--so many locks, not enough keys. (373)

Other reviews: Little Willow, Amanda.

The Mysterious Benedict Society
by Trenton Lee Stewart

Reynie Muldoon is gifted; he's advanced academically well beyond his peers. The orphanage where he lives won't allow him to go to an advanced school, but they do hire a tutor for him. Miss Perumal is more than a tutor; she's kind and understanding, and Reynie enjoys her company. She does her best to challenge Reynie, but he longs for more. He wishes that he could go someplace where he fits in, and where he can find real friends and real challenges. When Miss Perumal sees an ad in the paper for "special opportunities" for gifted children, she encourages him to apply. To qualify for the special opportunities, Reynie has to take a series of the strangest tests he's ever taken.

What Reynie finds at the end of the tests is more than he bargained for. He gains friends and finds challenges, but he also finds danger as he and his newfound friends are sent undercover on a secret mission. The fate of the world depends on Reynie and three other unusual children. Time is running out, and the four children must learn to work together before it's too late.

The Mysterious Benedict Society is an exciting and fun adventure with lots of surprises. Each of the children is gifted in a different way, and the unique way each one solves the tests highlights their different way of thinking and looking at the world. Gifted children especially will enjoy this book, not only for its variety of gifted protagonists, but for its creative wordplay, puzzles, and twists. Its audience isn't limited to gifted children, however, and ultimately the message is inclusionary: all the children on the team matter; even those whose talents aren't obvious are important to the success of the mission. The characters are interesting, and watching the four very different children learn to work together as a team is a delight. The pacing is good and keeps the reader hooked until the end.