love & leftovers by Sarah Tregay

Oh my goodness. Oh MY goodness.

Go find this book right now.

This book is good.

As part of my goal to read "The United States of YA" as created by Epic Reads, I picked up love & leftovers by Sarah Tregay at my local library. Had I taken a closer look at the title (which is actually love & leftovers: a novel in verse) I might have put it back down. I don't read a lot of poetry, and I very much try to avoid teenage emo angst. However, I grabbed up the first four books from the Epic Reads list that I could find at the library with any remote connection to my life (like the states I've lived in or frequently visited because friends and family live there), and love & leftovers was one of them.

Thank goodness I didn't put this one back down.

Because it's that good.

Even though it's in verse.

Possible BECAUSE it's in verse.

Seriously, the whole story is told through the poems of Marcie Foster, teenager, daughter, best friend, girlfriend, and poet.

The poems clearly spell out that Marcie had a rough summer that turned into a rough school year. Her parents' marriage has crumbled because of a fairly typical scenario involving less than standard participants. Her mother packs up a suitcase and Marcie and heads to New Hampshire (hi, Chanin!) to a family summer house.

Here's how Marcie explains the situation.

An Explanation

My mother

took two weeks off

back in June.

I asked her

(in July)

what we were doing.

I think she meant to say, "Vacationing"

but she said, "Running away."

Which might have been okay;

even though I thought that

if I ever ran away,

I'd do it with

a certain emo-sensitive rocker boy

and not my mother.

And then Marcie and her mother overstay the summer. So now Marcie is away from her home, her friends, her boyfriend, and her father. Instead she has her absent-through-depression mother, a new school, and no friends except for a really cute boy who brings her breakfast. Marcie is lonely and mostly alone. The only thing, besides her poetry, that seems to help is talking to her best friend. Talking to her boyfriend just makes her sad because they can't seem to speak of anything except for how much it hurts to be apart.

So Marcie copes and she writes and she starts to fit into this new life in New Hampshire. She still misses her old life, but she's beginning to feel slightly less lonely, until her mother, who hasn't been paying attention to much of anything at all, decides that she doesn't like how much time Marcie spends with the cute boy.

And so Marcie goes back to Idaho to live with her Dad and to try and fit into her old life.

That doesn't go as easily as she hoped. In fact, Marcie realizes how lonely you can be even when your favorite people are geographically close to you, but she also learns how amazing it can be to have truly good friends. And maybe, despite the big mess her parents made and the smaller messes she made herself, she might finally figure out how it feels to be in love.

Goodness, this book is good. It is, however, definitely for an older YA crowd. The topics this book tackles either head-on or tangentially are infidelity, sexual orientation, teen sex, teen pregnancy, clinical depression, betrayal, contraception, love, and divorce.

 

Posted with Blogsy

My summer reading program

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to travel the U.S. via YA novel.

The folks at Epic Reads were kind enough to put this together.

Clockwork Angel by Cassandra Clare

My current obsession is Twitter.  It's not for everyone, but it provides me hours of entertainment and endless examples for class.  Seriously, Twitter? It rocks.

This guy will play Magnus Bane
in The Mortal Instruments movie
released in August.

ANYWAY, on Twitter, I follow author Maureen Johnson (@maureenjohnson) who is HILARIOUS.  She's also an amazingly talented author. Amy reviewed Maureen's 13 Little Blue Envelopes at The Family Addiction. (You can read it here.)  Earlier this year, Maureen was hinting at a major new project coming in in conjunction with Sarah Rees Brennan (@sarahreesbrenna) and Cassandra Clare (@cassieclare).  Finally, after many teasing tweets, the secret was revealed.  Cassandra, Sarah and Maureen would collaborate to write The Bane Chronicles, an e-serialization focused on Magnus Bane, a character from two other YA series written by Cassandra Clare.


I wanted to check out the new e-serial, but I'm a true book nerd, so I knew I needed to backtrack and read the first two series before I started The Bane Chronicles.  And that leads me Clockwork Angel by Cassandra Clare.  It's the first series that mentions Magnus Bane.


Clockwork Angel is the story of Tessa Gray, a young woman who leaves the U.S. to meet her brother in Victorian England.  From the very moment she steps on the ship, nothing goes quite as planned.  Her brother is missing, and Tessa is held captive by two strange sisters who are convinced Tessa has the ability to "change".  Tessa is eventually rescued by the Shadowhunters, a group as unknown to her as her supposed ability.  The Shadowhunters  promise to help her find her brother.  That, too, doesn't go quite as planned.  The Shadowhunters' world and the trouble that Tessa's brother has discovered is enough to make any 16-year-old girl's head spin.

Tessa is brave, and she has new friends to help her adapt, but there is actual danger in this society of vampires, hunters, warlocks, demons, and Tessa--whatever she might really be.  There is also complicated romantic distraction because her new friends are two young men as dedicated to each other as they are to the Shadowhunter cause.  Jem and Will both see the brave, smart and beautiful woman that Tessa will become, but they both have their reasons for keeping her at arm's length.

There's a lot to absorb in Clockwork Angel, but it was a great read.  It wasn't always an easy read,  but that's fair because being a teenager never is--even without magic, danger and betrayal.  I highly recommend this Infernal Devices series (Clockwork Angel, Clockwork Prince, Clockwork Princess) and I mean to read The Mortal Instruments series as well.   I would rate the series with a PG-13.  The characters are 16 and older with typical teenage hormonal distractions.  There is violence and death as well. The books all end with a resolution, but it wouldn't be confused with a shallow happily-ever-after.  If you can gear yourself up for the emotional roller coaster, you should read Clockwork Angel.

Coraline by Neil Gaiman

Once, in a letter, Neil Gaiman misspelled the name Caroline and thought to himself, "Coraline. That almost looks like a real name."  (Don't believe me? Watch the video.  Then, again, watch it anyway.  It's an awesome speech.)

And a real name it is, if you're paid, in his words, to make things up and then write them down.

What Mr. Gaiman made up and wrote down is a story about a young girl who has moved into a new house and begins to explore.  Coraline's family doesn't have the whole house--just one flat on the middle floor.  Two ladies with theater in their pasts live on the bottom floor, and a crazy old man who claims to be training a mouse circus lives on the the top floor.

Coraline and her parents have moved in a bit before school starts, so Coraline wonders around trying to entertain herself during the last days of vacation.  Both of her parents work from home, but that doesn't mean they have time to entertain their daughter. Instead, Coraline goes off exploring.  She explores their flat.  She explores outside.  She explores downstairs, where the ladies call her "Caroline" and upstairs, where the crazy old man calls her "Caroline".  But he also tells her that the mice warn her against going through the door.

Actually, they warn against going through THE DOOR.

See, when Coraline was exploring her family's flat she found a door that opens up onto a brick wall.  Her mother explains that the door, probably, formerly, connected one side of the house to another.  Now that the house is broken up into flats, the brick wall separates Coraline's family's flat from the empty one next door.  Despite the obvious obstacle of the brick, Coraline is convinced, after a few strange things start happening, that she can get into the flat on the other side.

And, as you might suspect (or this story would go nowhere), one day when Coraline is exploring, she opens the door and the obstacle is gone.  She can walk through and into the next flat.  Now, a disappearing brick wall sounds odd, but once Coraline walks through things begin to get odder.  She meets her "other mother" and her "other father."  She meets a talking dog and a talk cat.  Her real parents disappear, and she learns to dislike black button eyes.

It's a good thing that
Coraline is both brave and clever.

Coraline has managed to land in a major spot of trouble.  Her "other mother" isn't as she seems, and in order to save herself and her parents, Coraline must be brave and clever.  She has help from the talking cat and a charm the theater ladies once gave her; she also gets advice from the spirits of three children who once were where Coraline is now.

Coraline is a fabulous tale (and it was made into a stop-motion 3D film in 2009), but it's not a a shallow or simplistic one.  I'm calling it PG because is might be frightening to suggestible readers, but there's no adult content.  My library keeps it in the children's collection, and I suspect the ideal reader is somewhere between my genius fifth-grade niece and her precocious first-grade brother.

Touch of Frost by Jennifer Estep

I love a good series,
but this one didn't make my Top 10 List.
Sorry, Mrs. Allen.

For those of you who read my reviews at The Family Addiction, you know I love a good series.  You probably also know I REALLY love a good fantasy series.  There's nothing quite like getting to know a group of characters that you can joyfully check in on again and again.  (Alas, the Saxon math series, pictured above, didn't quite have the character development I look for in a good series. Maybe there just aren't enough words in word problems for that to happen. ;D)

So imagine my delight, last week, when I discovered the first bok of a a new series already in motion.  

Happy dance!  I read the first one and then IMMEDIATELY bought the next two so I could have hours of uninterrupted time in the Mythos Academy world.  

Bliss.

I will say I was a bit slow to warm up to the Mythos Academy in Touch of Frost .  At this school just outside Asheville, North Carolina, 16-22 year old descendants of the famous warrior classes (the Amazons, Valkryies, Spartans, Roman, Celts, Ninjas, and Samurais) study and train together. While the students are legally minors, they're constantly faced with the very adult threat of Loki's return and the evil machinations of his supporters.  The basic concept seemed a little to close to Harry Potter for me, but once I got settled into the world I could focus on the story itself instead of constantly making comparisons between the Mythos Academy and Hogwarts.  J.K. Rowling didn't invent the "magic kids goes to school together" concept, so it was probably more my own hang up than anything else.

(Let me stop a minute and say, definitely, that the Mythos Academy books are written for an older audience than Harry Potter, so please don't hand these to any 9-year-olds.  The main character is 17 and is faced with real-time high-school aged problems.  There is discussion of sex, drugs, and alcohol, as well as war, death, and torture, so these are truly meant for a PG-13 crowd.)

The first of a series
The first of a GOOD series!

The main character in Touch of Frost (and the rest of the series) is Gwen Frost, a Gypsy girl with touch magic.  If she touches you or your belongings she can see your emotion-laden past. Gwen only learned of the Mythos Academy after the death of her mother, and she wasn't raised in decadent wealth like the rest of her classmates.  She's more comfortable in hoodies than Gucci or Prada.  It's safe to say that Gwen has a steep learning curve when it comes to figuring out the world of the Mythos Academy.

Touch of Forst centers around Gwen reluctantly tackling that learning curve while she tries to solve the mystery of the death of a Valkryie that no one seems to mourn.  She encounters a really cute, but troubled Spartan boy and an even more troubled Nemean prowler, she might, JUST maybe, have started to make friends, and she puts herself in peril just to figure out what's going on.

I thought  Touch of Frost was a great introduction to this series by Jennifer Estep. I devoured the second two (Kiss of Frost and Dark Frost), and I'm looking forward to the fourth (Crimson Frost, which comes out in December). The book has all the elements of a good fantasy series, but set in a world of teenagers and young adults who are struggling to learn about themselves and their boundaries.

(If this review has confused you more than helped you, there is a 99-cent introduction available in e-format, First Frost.  It, however, isn't a story on its one--only background information that gets repeated in each of the subsequent tales.)

Hearts At Stake by Alyxandra Harvey

For me, summer has always been about sun and shucking the school year's schedule.

When I was little, that meant wanting to swim all day long and being oblivious to the sun.
(Nothing but good times when you're little, right?)

When I was a teenager that meant detassling and trying to assure a dark non-farmer's tan.
(Let's not talk about that, okay?)

This year, it means a quick trip to Florida, a longer trip to Italy, and an appreciation of sunscreen.
(Yep.  Italy.  Three weeks.  And it's work.  I swear.  And, yes, I have the coolest job.)

Knowledge and the aging process have brought on that appreciation for sunscreen.  (When I was in Florida last weekend, I became well aware of just how much of my own back I can't reach; I have the peeling, healing sunburn as a demonstration.)  But, no matter how much I don't want skin that looks like leather and no matter how much I like to sleep in, I still love the warmth of the sun.

Which is why, no matter how much I love vampire books, I would make a HORRIBLE vampire.

Johnny Depp in Dark Shadows
That's requires some serious SPF.

This look is just not for me.  ==>

However, if you want to slather on some SPF 45, throw on your shades, and read a fun YA vampire book while you bask in the sun's yellow glow, I've got a great recommendation for you.

Bonus?  It's part of a series (The Drake Chronicles), so if you like it you've got more to read!

Super bonus?  This one is only $2.89 right now for Kindle and Nook.  Holla!

Hearts At Stake by Alyxandra Harvey is the tale of two best friends, Solange and Lucy.  Solange was born into a vampire family (the Drakes), and on her fast approaching 16th birthday, she'll turn.  Lucy is a human whose parents have raised her to be an open-minded, loyal activist, so she's naturally (super-naturally?) a fit with the Drake family of vamps.  Just because they're different doesn't mean she should fear them. Instead, she loves Solange like a sister, and she might love one of Solange's brothers like, well, very much NOT like a brother.

Solange is not looking forward to turning.  She's a peaceful person, she doesn't like blood, and she knows her turning will make some other vampires very, very uncomfortable.  Solange just might be the vampire at the center of a prophecy that will cause a huge shift in the power structure of the vampire world.

Fun AND on sale!

There are different kinds of vampires in this book, and not all of them are good.  Even the ones who could be good can be pretty big jerks.  (Sounds like humans, no?)  There are also vampire hunters among the humans.  So a shift in the power structure is a very, very big deal.  Solange would prefer to avoid all of that, and she'd like to avoid all the safeguards her family has set up.  The Drakes want to protect her from the different vampire factions that believe that killing Solange before she turns will prevent the prophecy from coming true.

Lucy is significantly more bloodthirsty (har!) than Solange, and, as I mentioned, she's fiercely loyal.  While this battle could be considered the Drakes' alone, there's no way Lucy would abandon her friend at this important, dangerous time.  Lucy's ideas for assistance are sometimes more dangerous than helpful, but her dedication can not be questioned.

This was a fun book to read with a little bit of romance and quite a bit of danger and political intrigue.  (Thus the PG rating.) The point of view switches from Solange to Lucy, but the chapter headings make it clear whose voice we're hearing.  The two girls are different enough in personality that it also helps make the jumps fairly easy to follow.  What's a little less easy is keeping track of the difference factions.  There are more than five, and some of them have similar and mostly unpronounceable names.  Still, it makes an ironically good beach read.

Hoot by Carl Hiaasen

Juvenile burrowing owl

A not so juvenile burrowing owl

"Look," said Roy, "every day we've been reading about regular people, ordinary Americans who made history 'cause they got up and fought for something they believed in.  Okay, I know we're just talking about a few puny little owls, and I know everybody is crazy about Mother Paula's pancakes, but what's happening out there is just plain wrong. So wrong."

That's how Roy Eberhardt makes his impassioned plea to his classmates (in Hoot by Carl Hiassen)  about saving these little guys you see pictured here.  Roy doesn't normally talk so much, and most of the kids in his class don't really know him because Roy is the new kid.  (His dad's job with the Department of Justice moves the family around a lot.)  New kid or not, Roy can't stop worrying about the baby burrowing owls who will be trapped in their nests when the construction crews start up their bulldozers on a lot designated to get a new pancake house.

Roy is a middle-schooler with a lot on his plate.  (Just, you know, no pancakes, because he's worried about those owls.)  Roy misses living in Montana, and school is complicated.  He IS the new kid.  Again.  There's a bully named Dana (sorry, Dad!),  and a tough girl with serious biting power named Beatrice who may or may not be Roy's new friend.  Beatrice has an oddly nicknamed brother who doesn't wear shoes, but is willing to pull some crazy stunts in order to protect the burrowing owls.  Roy wants to save the owls, but he's uncomfortable with the extreme measures that Beatrice's brother is willing to take.

Hoot isn't an easy tale, but it's a really good one.  (It was a Newbery Honor book in 2003 which means that librarians agree with me.)  Hiassen is known for his over-the-top characters and his dedication to Florida's precious ecosystem. There's a certain amount of scorn apparent in most of his work for the institutions of Big Business and Government; that contempt blazes off of some of the pages of Hoot.  I haven't read a Hiassen book, yet, that didn't make me laugh, but he doesn't offer easy answers or soft-pedal the reality of growing up*.

As Roy's mom says "Honey, sometimes you're going to be faced with situations where the line isn't clear between what's right and what's wrong.  Your heart will tell you to do one thing, and your brain will tell you to do something different.  In the end, all that's left is to look at both sides and go with your best judgment."

My best judgment on Hoot is to rate it as a PG-13 based on the illegal activities (both civil and corporate), the age of the characters, and the tough decisions that face Roy.  I say this knowing full well that my oldest niece read this when she was eight or nine, so if your young reader is an advanced reader just know what s/he is getting into with Hoot.

*We'll revisit these themes tomorrow when I review Hiassen's  Skinny Dip for The Family Addition.

The Thirteenth Child by Patricia C. Wrede

I fully admit that I read The Thirteenth Child because Nalini Singh recommended it.  I <3 Ms. Singh.  As I said in this review, I'm a fan.

(Probably more like a fangirl, and I'm probably too old for that.  But I digress.)

Like any good fangirl at a loss for YA books to try, I picked up one that came recommended by one of my favorite non-YA authors.  Holla.  Good choice.

I fully recommend Ms. Singh's recommendation.

(See, total fangirl.)

Anyway, The Thirteenth Child by Patricia C. Wrede is little bit like a magical version of Little House on the Prairie.  It's got the pioneer, forging new territories piece of Little House (both the book and the eponymous television series) and the coming-of-age elements of the entire Little House book series.  The coming-of-age elements are bit accelerated in The Thirteenth Child because we see our main character, Eff, grow from the five to eighteen in just one book.  Sometimes I find those meandering "and when I turned 12" types of stories a little trying because they lack a definitive focus other than "I grew up", but this one is well done.  I really liked Eff, and I wanted to know more about her.

This is Little House on the
Prairie all grown up.
Or, Melissa Gilbert on
Dancing With The Stars.

Eff, you see, is the thirteenth child of her family, and in this magical version of Little House, there are those that believe strongly in the importance of birth order and numerology.  The thirteenth child is destined to turn out wrong, according to Eff's detractors.  She's a witch.  She has magic, and she's going to be bad.  Very, very bad--simply because twelve sibling were born before her.  Her twin brother, Lan, though, is the fourteenth child and the seventh son of a seventh son, so the very same people that labeled Eff as cursed when she was as young as four believe that Lan will do great and powerful magical things.  Part of this tale is a fascinating look at how we grow up believing what we've been told.

This is a magical
Little House on the Prairie.

Anyone reading along can clearly see that Eff is a good kid.  Her parents know that.  Her siblings understand, and her teachers do as well.  None of that stops Eff from doubting herself.  In fact, as she grows up she tries to bind her own magic so that it can't hurt anyone when she "inevitably" turns bad. Eff's determination to avoid her "fate" leads her to study some magical ways that aren't exactly mainstream, and that knowledge eventually allows Eff to be the hero of our story.  But that moment, when Eff figures out what the others failed to see, is Eff's coming-of-age moment.  It's the culmination of The Thirteenth Child.  Before you get there, you'll take another fascinating look at what America could have been if magic was an every day and if the American West had been full of dragons and mirrored beetles instead of bison.

This is the first book of a trilogy.  The second, Across the Great Barrier, is on my to-read list.  The third is yet to be released.  I look forward to those two installments, and you should, too.

(I'm assigning this a PG rating because of the good vs. evil themes and the elopement of one of Eff's sister's.  There's nothing graphic here (sex or violence), but there some big picture issues.)

Powerless by Matthew Cody

Sometimes I dream I can fly.

I suppose, really, that I'm actually floating in my dreams.  I'm always on the "wrong" side of a balcony, and when I let go of the railing, I don't drop.  It's a relief, in my dreams, that losing my hold on the railing doesn't lead to imminent death.  I don't know if flying or floating is really a super power I'd be interested in.  (I suspect I'd get tired of running into all the bugs.)   I'm afraid, left to my own devices, I pick out a pedantic super power like forcing everyone to see the illogic of their arguments.  I could be the Syllogism Sister.  I'm just a nerd like that.

S is for syllogism.

In Powerless by Matthew Cody, twelve-year-old Daniel is forced to ruminate on the topic of super powers when his family moves across the country to live with his fatally-ill grandmother.  One of the neighbor kids is crazy fast, so fast you don't even see her move, and one of his classmates ends up saving Daniel from a drop like the ones I almost dream about.  This classmate doesn't passively float, but actually flies AND he's super strong.  Daniel's just a normal twelve-year old from a normal family trying to deal with the sadness of his grandmother's illness, but he becomes close friends with a small circle of kids who all some super power.  Daniel is a bit of an interloper in this group; he alone is powerless.

His limits don't make Daniel bitter, because he is quickly focused on trying to save his friends.  Being powerless doesn't preclude him from being a hero.  It seems that something happens to all the kids with super powers when they turn 13.  They completely lose their powers.  They lose their memories of what they did with their extraordinary capabilities during the 13 previous years.  They even stop being friends with their former super-powered confidants.  Growing up, in this new hometown of Daniel's, has very marked ramifications for the kids with unusual talents.

Daniel has a tall order to fill.  He needs to understand the genesis of these powers and discover if the kids lose their abilities through a natural aging progression or because of some sinister intervention.  Figuring all of this out leads to danger, the moral question of limitless powers in the hands of young people with a limited world view, the uncomfortable realization that not all super power are a welcome thing, and the acceptance of the fact that no set of super powers can fix a crummy home life.

As Daniel tries to figure out how to help his friends, he's guided by some old comic books kept in the kids' clubhouse.  Powerless intentionally keeps to a comic book-like plot.  (Author Matthew Cody is a big fan.)  So this book is great read for anyone drawn to super heros, comic books, larger-than-life characters, and memories of trying to tackle grown-up problems before the world thought you were ready.

I'm giving this one a PG rating because there IS violence, there is death, and there are heavy questions.   Just like real life.  (There is no romance beyond a school girl crush.)

I really liked this book, but a word of warning for the adults, Powerless opens with a really haunting telling of how Michael turns 13 and loses his power.  It really made me think of Wendy refusing to move out of the nursery in Peter Pan as well as all the things we give up in order to act like "grown ups."  For young readers, I think this is merely part of the story. For adults, I think the prologue resonates with something deeper.