Alphas, by Lisi Harrison

This may have been the worst book ever. Lisi Harrison's manipulative and misogynistic tween writing has hit a new and exceptionally low low. I felt brain cells leaping off cliffs to get away from this drivel as I read it. Wildly depressing.

First Light, by Rebecca Stead

This might be the worst book I've read since I started this list.

I don't even know how to fully express what a disaster this was from start to finish- the concept (a secret underground civilization at least 7 generations old under the ice in Greenland founded by people fleeing genocide in England (?) that is discovered by a teen there with his parents who are studying global warming and mitochondrial DNA and the teen is psychic- or rather, is an "eye-adept" which is genetic and he can communicate with dogs who talk and and oh to hell with it.)

Stupid beyond all reason, an epic waste of time (thing was long, too), incredibly pretentious, badly written, nonsensical, silly, painful. Astoundingly, it is on the Rhode Island Children's Book Award list.

Angel, by Cliff McNish

This was, hands down, one of the worst books I have ever read and finished.

It was utter crap.

Freya, recently released from a mental hospital after becoming obssessed with angels after thinking she saw one, has now become part of a bitchy popular clique. (right.) A new girl, Stephanie, starts at her school, and is ostracized because she too is obsessed with angels. Then 'real' angels get involved, and well, it isn't worth the words to say what disgusting crap this was.

I think handing this to a teen would be abusive.

Twilight, by Stephenie Meyer

You know what? To hell with it. I give up.

This was unreadable.

I have never mentioned before on this blog a book that I started and put down, but I've spent half my weekend forcing myself to pick this up, and feel like it earns at least a mention.

Dreadful.

How Nancy Drew Saved My Life, by Lauren Baratz-Logsted

Well, this was nowhere nearly as good as the other Nancy Drew themed adult fiction I read this week, I'll tell you that much.

Maybe it suffered by comparison, but, it is a Red Dress book, which usually bodes pretty ill of a title.

Um- cross Jane Eyre with Nancy Drew and a smidge of Ian Fleming-lite with a twist of Mary Poppins, and you would have this steaming pile of nonsense.

Yup. Awful. The only thing that came close to redeeming it is that there was blessedly little talk of shoes.

The Upper Class, by Hobson Brown, Taylor Materne, and Caroline Says

Well, I guess it's been a while since I read any YA, and this was awful.

Fish out of water story- Nikki Olivetti is a nouveau riche Long Island girl who gets sent to exclusive Wellington boarding school, where her roomate is field hockey star Laine Hunt.

blah blah blah.

How To Be Cool, by Johanna Edwards

This was terrible.

Misogynistic chick-lit at it's worst.

Allie Finkle's Rules For Girls, by Meg Cabot

You know, I do not really like Meg Cabot. But I didn't think she was eeeeevil, I just thought she has a roomful of chained up ghostwriters she whips with feather boas. Now, I'm really starting to suspect she's on the Dark Side. I rarely read children's books. I've read a lot of YA lately, sure, but other than revisiting childhood favorites, I've mostly (and happily) ignored the children's books. But hearing that La Cabot has started up a children's series, and reading article after article about how this has just made her publishers go ka-ching! kaching! with excitement, I thought I'd check it out.

It was loathesome.

Allie Finkle is a little bitch in training, her moral compass is broken, her parents should send her to boarding school in Liberia, and I can't believe anyone published this piece of shit.

Confessions of a Backup Dancer, by Tucker Shaw

This was (predictably) pretty bad, but it was interesting for one major reason- the protagonist was definitely kind of dumb, which is so refreshing after reading YA book after YA book where the protagonists have all these hidden depths and motivations, and in their diaries/letters/blogs/whatever use startlingly good vocabulary words and even their friends often end up being bright and articulate behind their shells. This girl, Kelly, the dancer, really just wanted to dance and help her brother, who, although he ended up being surprisingly bright and articulate under his troubled shell, still didn't turn around and be all strivey and complicated, he wanted to go be a forest ranger and fight fires. It was just different.

I imagine that writers, being writers, have a hard time creating inarticulate voices, and that's just what this Kelly was- a kinda dumb girl who thought about her hair and looked around and danced and when she didn't like her strippery costumes, it was because the boob tape itched or something, not because of any (even buried or inarticulate) gender politics, and who never questioned why Darcy (Brittney Spears, y'all) was a better selling pop star than her rival, the vocally talented but skanky Pashmina (Christina Aguilera, FTW).

The Willoughbys, Lois Lowry

Very disappointed in this.

It was totally Lemony Snicket-y, and that's been so overdone.

Also, it gave away the ending to Little Women.

Shame on you, Lois Lowry. You're better than this.

Buried by Robin Merrow Macready

What on earth is there to say about this? It was all going along well and interestingly until the very last bit, when it disolved into the most ludicrous sort of soap opera melodrama implausible goofiness. Until that last chapter, it had me. With the last chapter, I was actually laughing and reading out bits aloud to my long suffering husband.
2 Quality + 8 Popularity = 10 Overall YA (popularity points for good cover)

La Linea, by Ann Jarmillo

YA novel about Miguel Cervantes and his sister, Elena, and their crossing La Linea (the border between Mexico and the US).

This is a tough book to score, because I feel as though I ought to have liked it, but I can't truly say that I did.

The first scenes in San Jacinto seemed grippingly real, but once Miguel and Elena were on the move, it kind of blurred for me and although their journey is fraught with danger and help comes to them from a fellow migrant called Javier, who sacrifices himself to help them, the scenes never felt very clear to me.

The end was so sudden, too- I felt like the most interesting parts of the story were skipped over- I felt, really, as if my copy of the book was missing chapters, which made it an unsatisfying read for me.

La Linea

Quality: 6 Popularity: 6 Overall: 12

Teen Idol, by Meg Cabot

I hardly believe that there is a real Meg Cabot. I think, instead, there might be a factory filled with desperate writers chained to desks churning these puppies out. Maybe the 'real' Meg Cabot walks through every now and then to whip them and to make sure everything is saccharine, light, oh so very 'clean', whiter than wonder bread, and that the heroines (to really stretch a word) are just charmingly awkward enough to be non-threatening.

Seriously. Have you seen pictures of Meg Cabot? I don't want to sound catty, but the woman seems to be experiencing some kind of bizarre prolonged adolescence complete with the kind of fashion faux-pas that made Drew Barrymore's annoying character in Never Been Kissed (a story of a woman who can't let go of high school) so easily mockable. Check this out.

On the left, in the pink, a photo from La Cabot's own web site. Note the tiara, note the fuzzy thing. On the right, please note Ms. Barrymore's similar fuzzy thing. I need say no more.

Anyway, Teen Idol is the story of regular everyday girl Jenny Greenley, who gets along with everyone but who has no boyfriend (awww) who is asked by her principal to help guide an under cover teen movie star through a few weeks of regular high school life as preparation for a movie he is working on. Already we have stretched credibility to the snapping point. The premise is absurd- does Cabot really suggest that readers believe that teen movie stars infiltrate high schools and that no one would notice (unless, of course, at the fundraising car wash, said teen idol takes off his shirt to reveal his distinctive tattoo, blowing his cover?)? Arrrrgh. This kind of makes my head explode.

You can guess the rest. Bleh. I kind of want to wash my brain now. And don't even get me started on The Princess Diaries.

Teen Idol

Quality: 2 Popularity: 6 Overall: 8 YA

We Have Always Lived In The Castle, by Shirley Jackson

This turned out to be a re-read, which says a lot about it. I had totally forgotten I had read it until I got to the little chanting song "Merricat, Merricat, would you like a cup of tea?" and realized I had read it before.

Well, I don't know what to say, really, it is Shirley Jackson doing the gothic horror thing that she does, and although I really enjoyed The Haunting of Hill House and of course, her story The Lottery, gothic horror is just not my thing, and this book just strikes me as weird. I kind of wanted to kick all the characters. To say much more m ight give the 'twist' away, so I'll stop here.

We Have Always Lived In The Castle

Quality: 4 Popularity: 6 Overall: 10

The Invention of Hugo Cabret, by Brian Selznick

I did not get this book, let me say that first.

It is endless, and for every page of whispery thin text, there are about 5 or so pages of drawings of wide eyed French youth in the 1930's, running around train stations fixing clocks and making small automata out of toy store gears, and everyone is a theif, and it all turns out to be about movies.

It was, for me, a ghastly experience.

I do not like graphic novels.

How the heck do you translate this nonsense into Braille?

And what a waste of time it felt like.

I don't understand the huge, high praise for this publication, why it won awards, why its Amazon rating is 4 1/2 stars after 95 reviews. I don't understand it at all.

The Invention of Hugo Cabret

Quality: 3 Popularity: 7 Overall: 10 YA

Boot Camp, by Todd Strasser

A wretched, expoitative, voyeuristic and violent YA book.

Garrett is sent to Lake Harmony, a private juvenile delinquent camp, where he endures many violent humiliations and brainwashing etc etc.

Not my cup of tea in the least. And, if I must say so, kind of ludicrous. Before anyone wants to jump down my throat and point me to the reference and resource list at the end of the book, yeah, I know these things do happen. I just thought this was a rotten book, and it read as implausible, which is my least favorite thing of all in what purports to be 'realistic fiction'.

Boot Camp

Quality: 3 Popularity: 6 Overall: 9

Bitter is the New Black, by Jen Lancaster

I don't know why I keep picking these up. I think I miss Bridget Jones.

Well, this one is at least non-fiction (ish). It tells the story of an uber-bitch power-hungry corporate vp from a dot.com, who gets, well, blown off when the bubble bursts. She carries her Prada bag to the unemployment office, and then carries on stridently about how they won't take her seriously.

It went on and on, and of course, by being unemployed and having to sell all her handbags, and having to move to (gasp) a worse part of town, and even (double-gasp) having to dye her own hair instead of having a salon charge her $300, she finds inner peace and enlightenment. I am just not buying it.

Anyway, it was quick and breezy, and pretty well written. I am just so tired of these "poverty makes people real" books- Jen Lancaster (post short-skirt-and-long-jacket career girl phase) could probably kick back and keep it real with those "poor girls" the Nan Bobbsey so admired.

Bitter is the New Black: Confessions of a Condescending, Egomaniacal, Self-Centered Smartass,Or, Why You Should Never Carry A Prada Bag to the Unemployment Office

Quality: 4 Popularity: 7 Overall: 11

(Yeah, I totally took off points for the title. Nice cover though!)

The Bobbsey Twins at the Seashore, by Laura Lee Hope

The cover, obviously, was the best thing about this. Great cover.

Where to start... I think reading this reminded me why despite an entirely unnatural childhood urge to read children's books published a good 25 years before I was born, I never rocked the Bobbsey Twins.

Sacharine, trite, twee, and painful.

Disgusting little scenes and lines like this (I can hardly type it without retching)

"Queer," remarked Nan as they hurried on. "The two girls I thought the most of in Meadow Brook were poor: Nettie Prentice and Nellie the little cash girl at the fresh air camp. Somehow, poor girls seem so real and they talk to you so close - I mean they seem to just speak right out of their eyes and hearts."

BLECH! If you read the mother's reply to this, you might have the kind of swearing fit I did (scared the heck out of my cats!) so I will not trouble you so, but the book was just chock full of such loathsomeness.

I know it was published in 1952, but there is no excuse for this kind of dreck.

Of course, too, Nettie Prentice's missing father returns with a shipload of mahogany and a fortune- I wonder if Nettie stops being "so real" now that she's Bobbsey-rich?

The Bobbsey Twins at the Seashore Out of print, yay.

Quality: 2 Popularity: 2 Overall: 4

(Popularity score obviously weighted to be era-appropriate- I know this was huge back in the day)

Amazing Grace, by Megan Shull

I don't understand how this book got such good reviews.

Grace "Ace" Kincaid is an international tennis star at 16, with modeling contracts and tournament triumphs all over the place, but she needs to stop for a while. The set up is great, an interesting premise, but it almost immediately becomes the same kind of implausable gibberish as Teaching Filthy Rich Girls, with unlikely romances, no one recognizing Grace in her 'disguise' of dyed brown hair in some impossibly perfect small Alaskan town straight out of Northern Exposure complete with flannel shirts and motorcycles and Quirky Locals. Grace spends her time in exile, and then, for no reason I could find, suddenly feels able to return to her 'real life' after donating all her money to the town or something else equally ridiculous.

Amazing Grace

Quality: 4 Popularity: 6 Overall: 10

Planet Janet, by Dyan Sheldon

Planet Janet was fun, quick, breezy, and terribly familiar. Cross a young Bridget Jones with Louise Rennison's Georgia Nichols, dye her hair purple, and you have Janet. Complete with the little glossary to help translate those puzzling Briticisms (something that drives me crazy beyond all reason- are editors convinced that Americans are so stupid that they'll never figure out what knickers are?) this book went fast and forgettably. I finished it a few hours ago and if it weren't for this log, I would totally forget about it.

Quality: 4 Popularity:8 Overall: 14