If you're looking forward to fall books, here are some of my recommendations (with reviews!) at Librarilly Blonde
Hate List by Jennifer Brown (Little, Brown 09-2009)
Candor by Pam Bachorz (Egmont USA, 09-2009)
The September Sisters by Jillian Cantor (HarperCollins, 05-2009...this one's spring)
Liar by Justine Larbalestier (Bloomsbury USA, 10-2009)
and two books I reviewed jointly because they cover similar topics: Fat Cat by Robin Brande and Food, Girls, and Other Things I Can't Have by Allen Zadoff (Random House, 9-2009 and Egmont USA, 9-2009)
Happy reading!
© Carlisle Webber of A Chair, A Fireplace & A Tea Cozy
I've got some book reviews for you over at Librarilly Blonde:
and you can see my first music reviewing effort, for
The Heroin Diaries Soundtrack by Sixx: A.M.
I've also made
some predictions as to what's going to take the Printz. Come argue with me!
Admittedly, one of these books is adult, and one is more middle grade, but they're all worth reading.
As usual, reviews are posted at
Librarilly Blonde.
of Airhead by Meg Cabot and The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, both fantastic in their own ways. Reviews are posted at Librarilly Blonde.
I'm now back from ALA and wondering what to read first. I think I'll finish A New Dawn, then The Midnight Twins because Jacquelyn Mitchard can do no wrong, then maybe Anna Smudge, Professional Shrink. Ooh, and Hero-Type! Or maybe Octavian Nothing II!
of Impossible by Nancy Werlin and How to Ditch Your Fairy by Justine Larbalestier.
They were both terrific. 2008 has been such a great year for YA. Happy sigh.
Because I have been neglecting what I have to read for Popular Paperbacks...
Shift by Jennifer Bradbury
Stealing Heaven by Elizabeth Scott
A Little Friendly Advice by Siobhan Vivian
All We Know of Heaven by Jacquelyn Mitchard
And also, I so do not get the Borders.com "Teen" book designations.
Yes, I have already reviewed this book for Teenreads.com, but I enjoyed it so much I wanted to do a short entry about it here: Wake by Lisa McMann.
The Plot: Janie can see into other people's dreams. She knows who's been to class naked and who's got a secret crush on whom. Problem is, she doesn't get a choice of when and where she visits dreams. If someone nearby falls asleep, she falls in. It wasn't so bad when she was younger, and she can deal at home as long as her alcoholic mother passes out behind her closed bedroom door. But now she's a junior in high school, and demanding homework schedules and early starts to their days mean a lot of people fall asleep in class. She's more or less learned to deal with it. No more sleepovers. No college roommate. But one night, she's driving down Waverly Street and falls into a nightmare so terrible she crashes her car. The nightmare belongs to Cabel Strumheller, reputed drug dealer and the object of Janie's crush. As Janie and Cabel grow closer she is determined to help him out of his nightmare...but how?
Why you'll love it: It's all about the sparse writing. Since this is McMann's first book I don't know if the quick, almost disjointed writing is her trademark or a style she adopted to evoke Janie's dreamworld, but whatever it is, it works. Most of the paragraphs are one sentence long. This serves to make the book move incredibly fast with a sense of otherworldliness. The details are wonderful and the reader really gets an idea of Janie, her friends, and her surroundings without drowning in description. There's a twist at the end that isn't completely unpredictable but is satisfying. This book is heavy on plot but the characters are still quite interesting and human. It's something you can finish in one sitting, and you'll be left wondering what other people dream about.
crossposted at carlie@bccls
Mary Pearson is a terrific writer, so I was very excited when I opened a package from Holt and saw an advance of her new book, The Adoration of Jenna Fox. If you've read her previous YA novel, A Room on Lorelei Street, expect something very different. Jenna Fox is just as good in terms of quality, but it's got a much different tone.
Because this book won't be out until April 2008, now is a good time to stop reading if you don't want to be even remotely spoiled.
The plot: A long time from now in a state far far away (California), seventeen-year-old Jenna Fox awakens from a year-long coma. What she can't figure out is why she has a phenomenal grasp of everyone's history except her own. She knows the entire text of Walden but doesn't remember that she always called her grandmother Nana, not Lily. Her mother is reluctant to let her go to school or drive, and she never sees her father anymore; he still lives in Boston. When she is allowed to go to school, it's to a local charter where all of her classmates have something wrong with them. When she tries to log onto the Net to find out the details of the car accident that took a year of her life, her access to the information is denied. There's a hidden key in her mother's mattress to a closet, and that closet contains a secret Jenna is desperately trying to crack. Eventually, her mother and father do tell her the truth about her missing year. Or at least, they tell her most of the truth. The rest...she remembers.
Why you'll love it: There's always lots of talk about the theme of identity in YA lit, and here Pearson has taken it to its furthest extreme. Jenna has to figure out who she is with no memory of who she used to be. She's surrounded by people who tell her half-truths and she gets the feeling she's an inconvenience to them. Pearson has built an amazing futuristic world where science may be quite different from what we know now but the basic human condition, that we want to know ourselves and be loved by others, has stayed very much the same. The line on the front cover asks "How far would you go to save someone you loved?" I think the real question here is, "How far would you go to save yourself?" (Of course, the question of how far you'd go to save the one you love is one that drives the book, but I think the other one is far more overreaching.) This is a creepy, creepy book along some of the same the lines of David Lubar's True Talents and Nancy Werlin's Double Helix. It also reminded me of Airhead by Meg Cabot, which I'll review at a later date. And it's already been picked up for a movie.
Mary Pearson's Jenna Fox page.
crossposted at carlie @ bccls
Have you see the Adobe Illustrator CS2 WOW Book ? I borrowed it from the library today, and it looks "wow" enough to invest it. A CD comes with it.
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Great list! I really want to read The September Sisters.
Thanks for the recommendations - I'm particularly intrigued by Liar, Candor, and Hate List. It looks like it will be a good fall for reading!