Epic, by Conor Kostick

Cool book, set in a dystopian future where all conflict is solved through fights in games, and the whole world plays this game called Epic. One's wins and losses within that game translate into real-life status and possessions, and a small group of teens from a remote island shake up the balance of power by becoming dragon-slayers.

Interesting story, good premise, a little predictable, but fun. This book seems to be getting a lot of buzz but I'm not convinced that this is the best YA book I've read this year.

If you're not into gaming, you'll be pretty damn lost reading it- I have played my share of kobold killing druids, etc, so it wasn't complete babble to me- I think my problem with the book was that even though there have been days when I sat in a seriously messy room, having my sim clean up their considerably cleaner home, in order to max out my room score, I just can't buy that an entire world would let that happen and that a power structure - the Casiocracy- could be born of gaming.

Epic

Quality: 8 Popularity: 8 Overall: 16

Not Buying It, by Judith Levine

Lackluster book, I thought. I really wanted to love it (and I felt like I was cheating reading it- I've been choking down as much YA as I possibly can, and just felt desperate to read a book written for adults, but honestly, this was so entirely predictable that I could have written it for her.

The earnest debates over whether extra virgin olive oil is necessary, the longing to buy those interesting kevlar clothes in Brooklyn, how after a few months of not shopping, she started to feel serene....

It was dreadful and disgustingly bobo. I feel I should match the time I spent reading it doing some kind of penance.

Not Buying It

Quality: 4 Popularity: 6 Overall: 10

Masquerade, by Melissa de la Cruz

Masquerade is a tight, well-written sequel to Blue Bloods, de la Cruz's first book about the vampire elite, and the plot thickens in this follow-up.

Schuyler van Alen and Oliver Hazard-Perry travel to Venice to seek out Schuyler's grandfather, and he comes out of voluntary exile to return to New York to watch over her and to train her in the vampire arts. Her mixed blood is causing problems, though, and it is decided that she should take a human familiar to feed from even though she is only 16 (the age of consent is 18).

Texan Bliss and New York It girl Mimi continue to enjoy their new powers, but Mimi's obsession with Jack leads her to experiment witht he dark arts, and the book wraps up with an exciting dramatic scene.

While the first novel was such a delightful surprise, as I hadn't expected such intricate, complex characters and plotting from de la Cruz, (her Au Pair series isn't nearly as good as these), the sequel makes me feel that Blue Bloods wasn't a fluke- this is good stuff. Can't wait for the next one!

Quality: 9 Popularity: 9 Overall: 18

Masquerade

Life As We Knew It, by Susan Beth Pfeffer

A little light reading!

No, this was fantastic- and anxiety-feeding! At first, 16 year old Miranda's diary entries hardly mention the collision. Sure, astronomers are warning that a comet will hit the moon, and some are saying that it could bring severe disruptions to life on earth, but most people aren't panicking.

The collision knocks the moon off its orbit, causing horrible tsunamis, earthquakes, volcanos, etc. on Earth. Now, I love a natural disaster movie, so this scenario was right up my alley, but the way Pfeiffer turned a huge-scale end-of -the-world story into a tight, claustrophobic, hopeful family story was amazing. That's a good trick, right there.

Very well written, plausible, realistic, and somehow elegiacal and offering hope all at once, this was a solid, good book.

Life as we knew it

Quality: 9 Popularity: 7 Overall: 16

How I Live Now, by Meg Rosoff

New York anorexic Daisy is sent to England to stay with her Aunt Penn and her cousins. Shortly after her arrival, an (ominous but unspecified) act of international terrorism makes it neccessary for Aunt Penn (a vague but unspecified politican /advisor /academic?) to go to Oslo. After she leaves, WWIII breaks out, serious asymmetrical warfare, and in the ensuing chaos, Daisy and her cousins are left alone at their farm for a time.

Their struggle to survive without adults is interesting, but the most interesting part of the book was their struggle to get news- the (vague and unspecified) terrorists have (maybe) destroyed the telecommunications infrastructure, and news is just gossip. The government is planting stories (the smallpox) and no one can trust any information.

Daisy and her cousin Edmond fall in love, and begin a passionate romance before they are separated by the soldiers who eventualy commandeer the farm, and all in all it is a confusing, disturbing, wild ride of a book.

The vagueness was frustrating for me, although I can see that stylistically, it added to the anxiety of the book- the swirling rumors and the hinted terrorism gave an almost sickening feeling to the book. Strong book.

How I Live Now

Quality: 8 Popularity:7 Overall: 15

First Daughter: Extreme American Makeover, by Mitali Perkins

Good book! I've been reading some good stuff lately. A lucky run.

Sameera, nicknamed Sparrow, was adopted as a Pakistani infant by an American diplomat and his wife. Fast forward, and he's a Republican candidate for President. Sparrow leaves her European boarding school and her friends to come 'home' to be a part of his campaign. Sparrow is promptly thrust into the political spotlight, with ugly headlines appearing above photos of her and her father like "Is Righton soft on Muslims?"

A campaign aide steps in, offering assistance- an American makeover, starting with her name. Anxious to assist, Sparrow becomes Sammy, a designer-wearing perky girl, with a fake blog written by staffers. In a satisfying twist that leant depth to what could have been a cardboard baddie, the aide who orchestrates the makeover had been a political daughter herself who had been crucified in the press (think Chelsea Clinton).

Sparrow's conflicts are well presented- she wants her father to succeed, and as much as she wants her mother to go back to looking like the fair-trade policy wonk that she is, she understands that appearances count in a modern election, and that Mom will probably stay blond and exfoliated if she becomes First Lady. Sparrow wants to do her part, but to have a life at the same time.

Exerpts from Sparrow's own real blog, and the comments her friends leave are a great counterpoint to the fake Sammy's blog, and when Sparrow begins to wear salwar kameez to preserve her anonymity in DC, the casual racism she encounters is enraging. It was such a well written book, and this character was a delight- thoughtful, interesting, and interested in the world around her.

The only thing that seemed implausable was that her parents were Republicans. I mean, really?

Quality: 10 Popularity: 7 Overall: 17
First Daughter: Extreme American Makeover

The Girls, by Amy Goodman Koss

Girls' senseless cruelty is nicely drawn here.

5 girls, a clique of friends. Maya, Brianna, Renee, Darcy, and Candace. One morning, Candace decides Maya is out.

The narraration shifts from girl to girl, from Maya's lonely agony and bewilderment to Brianna's consciousness of her own weakness and Renee's social insecurity, Darcy's sick and submissive relationship with Candace, and Candace's own unhappiness and need to prove her power. Each girl's voice was unique, and each was very believable.

This book perfectly captured the almost desperate need to belong in middle school, and the pain of social ostracism.

I think the best evidence I can find of why I feel the voices are so authentic is to point to "A Kid's Review" on Amazon

"This is one of the most best book I have ever read. It is about 5 girls named Maya, Ren'ee, Darcey, Brianna, and Candance. Candance is the main member of the group and Darcey is her best friend and the other girl are the more less important one,s. Candace starts to kik out Maya for no reason. Then she kiks out Brianna too! Ren'ee starts to get comfused because they did not do anything. She trys to think what to do but what could she do? If you would like to find out what she does and what happens read the book and it will give you the answer. "
I think that a book making a child want to try "to think what to do" means that that child believed in the authenticity of those voices. I thought it was a very good book(and at a very low-level reading level, which seems hard to pull off.

The Girls

Quality: 9 Popularity: 8 Overall: 17

Blue Bloods, by Melissa de la Cruz

Fantastic YA book!

I thought it had great writing, well developed characters, a great sense of place and history (set among old New York city families - old as in Dutch- but set in the present), and a kind of style and verve that reads (to me) as a kind of cross between the goth-y vampire glamour and shadows of Twilight and the glitzy clubbing richkids scene of Gossip Girl. I thought it was a delicious book in every way.

From ancient Egypt to modern day Manhattan, the Blue Bloods have always ruled. I thought the book was surprisingly readable on a political level, too, with the Blue Bloods (the vampires) aided by the sycophantic upper middle class ( the Conduits) to live off the blood of the poor.

Schuyler is a great heroine, and the spattering of colonial American history (Roanoke colony, the history society, etc) was fun. I appreciate that de la Cruz didn't condescend to her readers- she left enough information that it would be tempting to find out more about 'what really happened' and it would be easy to find. Also, the characters showed familiarity with the world, appreciation for the arts, and a sophisticated worldview (well, they're ancient vampires, after all!) but that is refreshing after YA book after YA book that writes about teenagers as if they live on some desert island with only pop or punk (that depends on how 'deep' the book is) music, a tv, a cell phone, and some annoying/distressing parents and siblings. I love a book that mentions opera and exhibits at the Met.

Blue Bloods

Quality: 10 Popularity: 9 Overall: 19

Last Chance to See, by Douglas Adams

Yes, that Douglas Adams. Hitch-hiker's Guide to The Galaxy Douglas Adams. The Restaurant at the End of the Universe Douglas Adams. The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul Douglas Adams. Writing one of the most gentle, furious, loving, ranting, powerful non-fiction books to ever break my heart.

Adams (1952-2001) and his friend, zoologist and photographer Mark Carwardine were asked by the BBC to go look at some of the world's most endangered animals, and this is the resulting book.

From New Zealand to Kenya to China, they visit the passionate 'eccentrics' who devote their lives to saving such species and attempt to at least see the animals themselves. Komodo dragons, mountain gorillas, an awkward non-flying bird called an aye-aye, the baiji Yangtze river dolphin- each in terrible peril of being the last of its kind.

Adams' writing is always clever, and in this book he is able to bring some of his trademark absurdist humor into his writing, but reading it, his horror and sorrow come through.

The great joke of Hitch-hiker's is that the ugly and stupid Vogons destroy the Earth to make a hyperspace thru-way - it must have been appalling for Adams to come face to face with the fact that despite our so-called 'humanity', those grunting beasts are us.

Adams died in 2001. The last documented sighting (supported by photographic evidence) on the baiji dolphin was in 2002. In 2006 a massive survey of the Yangtze river and its tributaries failed to find even one. So long and thanks for all the fish, indeed.

I have a very hard time believing in an afterlife, but let me say this- I hope with every fibre of my being that Adams and a pod of baiji are heading for tea at the restaurant at the end of the universe.

Last Chance to See

Quality: 10 Popularity: 7 Overall: 17

High Tide: The Truth About Our Climate Crisis, by Mark Lynas

Fantastic book about climate change and the early impact of global warming that is already disrupting human and animal life. Lynas takes a world tour of global hotspots, and reports on how extreme weather, sea level rise, and changing climactic conditions are affecting them.

Wondering how a glacier his father photographed in Peru in the 1970's was faring set Lynas off on a fascinating journey.

From tipsy forests in Alaska (no, not drunk, but leaning because of permafrost thaw) to taro plots in Tuvalu that are dying because of daily inundations of sea water, Lynas sees the evidence that we are already in what is being called the anthropogenic era - a man-made climate.

Although this book is already out of date (Lynas's figures suggest that nations will have more time to solve our problems than we will- more recent reports, including the IPCC's latest offering suggest that we are experiencing climate change at rates hardly mentioned in early projections) it is more of a travelogue of what is being lost than an argument, so I don't think it loses any power by being 3 years old. If anything, reading it is even more sobering, knowing that those tipsy forests are degrees of magnitude vaster, that Tuvalu is evacuating, that even more glaciers are gone. His writing is accessable and smooth.

Quality: 10 Popularity: 5 Overall: 15

Fifteen Candles: 15 Tales of taffeta, hairspray, drunk uncles, and other Quinceanera stories, edited by Adriana Lopez

This was a lot of fun to read, and to me, an intimate look at something I've never experienced.

The 15 stories are a mixed bag of experiences, and some appealed to me more than others, but overall, the quality of the writing was excellent. I loved how the Quince experience or even the lack of a Quince is such a major thread in these lives, and the formality of the roles and the coming of age ritual is very cool.

I think my favorite story out of them all was The Dress Was Way Too Itchy, by Monica Palacios, but I truly enjoyed them all.

Fifteen Candles

Quality: 8 Popularity: 7 Overall: 15

Harmless, by Dana Reinhardt

This was powerful. Three girls try to cover up a wild night out with a lie that spirals out of control and changes not only thier lives, but the lives of others around them. I thought the teen voices were very real, and the ways that Anna, Emma and Mariah each changed through the novel seemed very plausible- Anna's increase in confidence and visibility and her ability to almost convince herself that 'it' happened was sad and real at the same time. Mariah too was a very well written character, with her loneliness behind her cockiness.

This was definitely an 'issue' YA novel but I thought it was well done, well written, and I couldn't put it down, even as my stomach was sinking over the consequences of their 'harmless' lie.

Harmless

Quality: 9 Popularity: 8 Overall: 17

Monster, by Walter Dean Myers

This was a damn good book. Steve is awaiting the trial that will determine the rest of his life. He is being tried as an accomplice to murder, and the way the story is framed through Steve's own screenplay not only makes the story very vivid, but it allows the author to leave out the actual crime- a robbery that went wrong, during which the store owner was killed.

Steve's innocence or guilt is never made clear, it is up to the reader to determine whether he is the 'Monster" of the title, but the way the legal system treats a black teenager is certainly monstrous.

Monster

Quality: 9 Popularity: 8 Overall 17

Won the Printz Award for Excellence in Young Adult Literature

National Book Award Finalist 1999

Gossip Girl: A Novel, by Cecily von Ziegesar

I have to say, I think this is seriously a really good book.

It is well written. Exceptionally well written. I have been reading a staggaring amount of YA stuff this year, and this is one of the few books I have really enjoyed the style of. It is fast, glittery, gossipy, catty, clever, and fun. The characters are well drawn- I would recognize them on the street. The New York details are dead on- perfect, in fact. The exerpts from the web site are fun and drive the story.

There's more. The books in the series cover the senior year of Blair, Serena, Nate et al and the trials and tribulations of their college applications and acceptances- the pressure they feel to go to Ivy League schools. It is really nice, I mean, shockingly nice to read about teens who want to go to college. I feel like I read heaps of YA stuff every week and hardly ever see characters who even think about that. The arts and the classics are daily parts of the characters lives. They play a drinking game that involves Latin conjugations. This too is refreshing.

Naomi Wolf attacked these books, calling them "corruption with a cute overlay", but I think she missed her target on these. The only character who might be 'corrupt' is Chuck Bass, and he is the clumsiest of the characters, von Ziegesar's only major misstep, and only later in the series does his character start seeming off.

Much has been made of the 'sex'n'drugs' in the book (and now in the tv series) but again, it seems silly. There is sex, as there often is in high school, or so they say, and yeah, that Nate sure is a stoner, but really, I think there are kids in America who smoke some pot and turn out ok. Nate's girlfriend Georgina, who has a serious drug problem, is painted as having a serious drug problem, and he calls his rehab advisor to get her help. Blair's bulimia is a serious problem.

These books are fun and worth reading, if only to see what the fuss is about. The first is the best, but they're all pretty great.

Gossip Girl

Quality: 9 Popularity: 10 Overall: 19

See Jane Hit, by James Garbarino

Interesting look at female violence. Garbarino also wrote Lost Boys, and while I thought See Jane Hit was a good book, it felt a little repetitive to me. Social toxicity is his catch phrase, and it's hard to deny that our culture has become desensitised to violence.

Some depressing case studies and frightening statistics, but there wasn't anything in the book that surprised me. I guess it might be the kind of book where if you're bothering to read it, you're probably predisposed to agree with the author that there is an issue at hand.

Quality: 8 Popularity: 5 Overall: 13

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

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

Well, I'm glad I finally read it! Very creative, very clever, fun and imaginative.

I don't know what else to say-it was very good.

Quality: 9 Popularity: 10 Overall: 19

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

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

Uglies, Pretties, Specials by Scott Westerfeld

These books have it all — fantastic character development and smart, clippy writing, and they address just about every major issue facing teens today, in an entirely non-preachy way. It is a tour de force. The heroine, Tally Youngblood, hurls herself across that line between safety and freedom, defies societal pressures and expectations to be conventionally beautiful, and tries to address the legacy of the environmental destruction left behind by the “Rusties” — us.

This unflinching series is impossible to put down, and impossible to forget, if only for scenes such as the one where Tally, on the run, encounters fields of genetically modified white orchids which have crowded out every other plant. The questions of what is beautiful and of what is natural and of what is right are worth thinking about.

I can't wait for the next book, Extras, set in the same dystopia.

Uglies, Pretties, Specials boxset

Quality: 9 Popularity: 9 Overall: 18

Alabama Moon, by Watt Key

Moon was raised in the wilds of Alabama by a father whose Vietnam experiences drove him into becoming an isolated survivalist. Moon can read, write, hunt, build shelter, grow food, but has never been around people. When his father dies (unneccessarily) after an accident, Moon tries to make it on his own but is betrayed by a well meaning lawyer, captured, and forced into society.
Moon's lifestyle was fascinating, and the survivalist stuff seemed like it would be right-on, although I have no experience to compare it too. I wish it had gone more into the Vietnam experiences of Moon and Hal's fathers, but maybe leaving that ambiguous worked for the story. I gave it a 8 for quality, but I don't know how easy a sell it would be, and the cover wasn't one that caught my eye. In fact, I thought the cover was kind of the weak point of a fantastic book.

Alabama Moon

Quality: 8 Popularity: 6 Overall: 14