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Set on an island near both Thailandand Cambodiain 1974 during the Vietnam War, Lost Girls by Ann Kelley is Lord of the Flies on estrogen.  Although Kelley borrows heavily from William Golding’s tale—down to wild boars and broken glasses—she doesn’t perform the rich psychological study of her predecessor.  Still, in fourteen-year-old protagonist Bonnie MacDonald, readers note traits of both Piggy and Ralph, and in Hope, we see a blending of Piggy and Simon.  The twenty-something redhead Layla Campbell and her cohorts, the Glossies, reflect Jack and his minions. Bonnie’s family is from Scotland, transplanted in southeast Asia by the war.  Members of the Amelia EarhartRead More →

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Everyone knows the story of the Three Wise Men who followed the Star and found the Baby Jesus lying in his manger in Bethlehem.  But what if I told you that the “wise men” were nothing more than escaped convicted criminals who had stolen their priestly robes from unsuspecting victims and while fleeing Herod’s army, stumbled into a stable in Bethlehem in hopes of ditching their pursuers?  And what if the leader of this gang of thieves and murders was someone both vile and virtuous, bloodthirsty and deeply sentimental, and as bitingly sarcastic as he is sincere?  How did one of the most wanted menRead More →

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Making her young adult debut, author Dayna Lorentz’s No Safety In Numbers has everything necessary to be a big hit: great premise, palpable tension, social commentary, a cast of interesting characters, and solid, well crafted writing.  Not to mention the creative marketing Penguin has put into the book already (ARCs came with bottles of hand sanitizer stickered with the bio-hazard graphic from the cover).   Lorentz’s all-too-plausible tale of suburban panic is gripping and unsettling because it’s very easy to see how this plot could become a reality no of us want to face.  Comparisons to Lord of the Flies are right on and theRead More →

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Readers who enjoyed King of the Screwups by K.L. Going (Harcourt, 2009) will find a similar theme and characters in Kody Keplinger’s A Midsummer’s Nightmare, which features a female protagonist.  On her first night in Hamilton, Kentucky, recent Indiana high school graduate Whitley Johnson argues fashion choices with fashionista, Harrison Carlyle, who offers to be her best friend, but Whitley doesn’t “do” friends.  In her experience “friends turn on you, abandon you, and lie about you” (61).  Because Whitley sees friends as a waste of time, selfish and fake, she decides she’s better off being a loner, with tequila as a best friend to makeRead More →

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Will and the other 6 teens who were cured of their debilitating phobias in Patrick Carman’s Dark Eden have been reunited in the sequel, Dark Eden 2: Eve of Destruction.  Will and Marisa convince Ben, Kate, Alex, and Connor, who are all now suffering from “elderly” ailments like arthritis, dementia, and hearing loss, to join them in a trip back to Fort Eden after Will receives a letter from the hated Mrs. Goring.  Ostensibly offering them a new “cure”, this time for the problems ravaging their bodies, Mrs. Goring convinces the teens to descend into an abandoned missile silo below Fort Eden in search ofRead More →

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 Michelle Gagnon’s first novel for young adults, Don’t Turn Around is unquestionably a thriller, certain to resonate with social activist readers and those who know the power of computers to perform invasive functions.  With echoes of the hacktivism but not the dystopian angle from Cory Doctorow’s Little Brother, Gagnon takes on shady big business, the issue of government cover-ups, and the very real plight of children in the foster care system. Gagnon tells her story primarily through the parallel threads of two adolescent lives whose paths cross and eerily connect.  Sixteen-year-old Noa Torson, who lost her parents when she was just an infant, spent severalRead More →

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Tackling some of the same powerful questions he did in his stunning debut You, Charles Benoit’s latest for young adults is Fall From Grace. High school senior Sawyer’s life is already neatly planned out for him: finish his above average high school career, packed with all the right extra-curriculars and volunteer work, go to the local liberal arts college and major in accounting for a career as an insurance actuary, and after college marry his beautiful, perfect high school sweetheart.  And until the day at the Mock United Nations assembly when he meets Grace, Sawyer has never bothered to question the plans his parents soRead More →

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New York City resident Sarah Beth (Sethie) Weiss is seventeen years old and obsessed with food and fat.  From Sethie’s perspective, lanky Janey won the genetic lottery and Sethie lost; even her 49 year old mother Rebecca looks better in a bathing suit.  Sethie’s two favorite words, svelte and lithe, are etched on her bedroom mirror, along with the mantras: Don’t Eat and Bones Are Beautiful.  5’4 Sethie weighs 111 pounds but she still sees fat on her boney frame.  Rules and definitions, order and control, rituals and routines govern Sethie’s life, unlike best friend Janey and almost boyfriend Shaw, who stroll through life unhurried.Read More →

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Yesterday by author C.K. Kelly Martin is a dystopian book flavored with time travel, Orwellian, and other futuristic Brave New World elements like genetic and mind engineering. Although the novel features detailsreminiscent of Feed by M.T. Anderson and Little Brother by Cory Doctorow, it offers neither the plot sophistication nor the thematic richness. In fact, the novel’s lengthy exposition spans several chapters before it escalates into action that holds the reader’s attention. The plot revolves around two sixteen year old designer babies, Freya Kallas and Garren Lowe, who look like Greek statues with classical, sculptured beauty. When a Toxo outbreak threatens humanity’s mass extinction, the two teens—whose parents have powerful jobs inRead More →